Barca fear Cesc price tag

Faus claims that the Catalan giants have a limited budget to spend on new players in the summer, and the La Liga club now fears that the inflated fees for Torres and Newcastle striker Andy Carroll have pushed Fabregas far out of their price-range.

"Barca cannot afford to spend a net amount of more than €40 million,” Faus told RAC-1, “and this figure should also factor in the hypothetical transfer of another player."

“That is, we can’t just spend all the money on Cesc - we also have to financially plan for the whole season.”

Fabregas came close to agreeing a return to Barcelona – his boyhood club – last summer, but Arsenal refused a £35 million offer for their 23-year-old captain.

"[To play for Barcelona] is a dream I have had since childhood,” Fabregas said at the time. “The truth is that [Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger] is like a second father to me. I told him what I thought. There were difficult moments.

"In the end, when I spoke to Wenger he told me 'no' - he was very emphatic, that the transfer was impossible.

Fabregas has made over 200 appearances for Arsenal since joining from Barcelona’s revered La Masia academy as a 16 year old.