Fabregas pleased with Barca toughness

Barcelona’s Cesc Fabregas feels his team’s Copa del Rey quarter-final win over Real Madrid proves they are more resilient than in recent seasons.

Pep Guardiola’s men are through to the last four after a 2-2 draw with Real on Wednesday secured a 4-3 aggregate win.

But they had to do it tough at Camp Nou, giving away a two-goal lead and soaking up pressure as the match wore on.

“Historically at this club when what happened yesterday happened in the past then we would normally collapse in the last minute and lose,” Fabregas said. “It’s there in our history.”

Barca has so often disappointed itself in the past and had this bad luck about it. Yesterday Barca suffered and suffered but ended up drawing and going through to the semi-finals of the cup.”

“I see this as something positive and so no I don’t see it as a negative. I think we have to take all the very, very positive things out of this.”

Fabregas paid tribute to Real for the way they went about their business after falling behind.

“For sure yesterday I saw a very strong Madrid team. They had a brutal counter attack which we knew all about anyway, but they were a tough rival,” Fabregas said.

“But we knew about this when we won the Super Copa, before we went to Japan, last week and again yesterday. I don’t think that anything really surprised us because when Madrid play at their maximum level they are the most fearsome rivals of any in the world.”

Fabregas also paid tribute to his former club Arsenal, and said he expects a sharp upturn in the London club’s fortunes with the return of key men from injury.

“(Arsenal) have been very unlucky for the last four or five years, always (having) injured players,” he said.

“Now Bacary (Sagna) is injured and Jack (Wilshere) has been injured for a while and (Kieran) Gibbs and now (Thomas) Vermaelen and (Andre) Santos It’s a shame because with the complete team they could fight for anything.”

“When you have five or six of your best players who are injured for a very long time, it’s very difficult to compete. Still, like that, I think they’ve done very well, but obviously now they are coming back.”

“I think we will see a very different Arsenal and a very strong one from now until the end of the season. I wish them all the best and hopefully they can win something at the end of the season.”