Nothing confirmed yet I see, but been on the cards for a while now, so remain gutted naturally. Always been freakishly unlucky with injuries (less permacrock, more Venetian glass) and therefore always prone to missing tracts of a season, but as someone said, that's why you have a squad. Was a Bosman so really don't see what was to lose by offering him a 1-year rolling contract rather than a PAYP (more appropriate for a 32-year old nostalgia buy like Fowler). Law of averages says we'd have got approx 30 games from him next season like we did last season. Wages? What, when we unadulterated shite like Degen, El Zhar and Itandje stuck on the payroll?
However you dismiss him (that false 10 games a season shite), Fabio oozed quality, an exquisite striker of the ball (rarity in our squad), a Rafa loyalist, and the last player in the squad with title-winning experience (two La Ligas). People naturally highlight his freekick against the Mancs, but forget he also had Ronaldo in his pocket all afternoon. The CL Chelsea FK was something else, inspired, no wonder he pointed to the heavens and his dad (killed in a car crash a few years back). And I'll also never forget the sight of him in the San Siro, intercepting a miscontrolled Inter pass, bursting forward down the wing and hitting a pinpoint peach of a pass into Nando who turned and *bang*.
Make no mistake, like with Sami and Leverkusen last summer, our loss is Olimpiacos' gain.