Romeu Is A Transfer Saga Time Bomb

While most clubs like to loan out their youngsters, Barcelona prefer to sell them. Not all of them mind you, Xavi, Iniesta and Messi were kept without sale, while the sight of Carlos Puyol playing for anyone else would surely sicken fans of the Catalan giants.

However, not everyone occupies the same esteemed position as players like Puyol, Messi and Xavi; Gerard Pique for instance, was sold to United, and Cesc Fabregas to Arsenal.

The pair met with differing levels of success; Pique was deemed surplus to requirements at Old Trafford, as Fabregas excelled at The Emirates.

While central defender Pique returned to Barca in 2008, the club are still enthraled in a long winded saga designed to engineer Fabregas' return to his "home," in a story more worthy of "saga status" than any other which has inflicted itself upon our attention spans.

I for one, am well sick of the constant Fabregas stories- I've had enough of seeing shirts shoved onto him, Barca players wooing him and Arsene Wenger getting defensive. Well, I'll still have to deal with Wenger being defensive even after the transfer is completed!

Unfortunately for me though, Fabregas is unlikely to be the last player involved in a massive tug of war involving Barcelona and an English club, just this week the seeds of future controversy were  sown.

In the market for a defensive midfield player after Michael Essien's injury, Chelsea look set to finalize the purchase of Barca youngster Oriol Romeu for five million euros. At age twenty, Romeu has the potential to develop into fine player for the Blues- then again, he also has the potential to not develop at all.

As much as I hate to wish ill to a young player, Romeu is set to become one of the few recipients of my genuine dislike, through no fault of his own of course, just because he's ex Barca. If Romeu excels, and he certainly has the ideal footballing platform to do just that, then we will see another Fabregas- it's an absolute guarantee.

As mentioned before, Barca have developed a habit of selling youngsters, yet they never seem to truly accept that a former academy prospect is no longer their player; much in the way that J.K. Rowling's goblins coveted Gryffindor's sword...

Romeu will be no different to Fabregas. If Sky Sports is to be believed, then Barca are already preparing for the inevitable- placing a clause in the youngster's contract designed to make a move back as feasible as possible.

For those of us who hate sagas, and I count myself as one of that number, Romeu's move to Chelsea is bad news; his is a ticking time bomb, and it's only a matter of time until it goes off.