Former Barcelona technical chief Carles Rexach says Cesc Fabregas was not pushed into the arms of Arsenal as a junior.
Rexach admits his team back then, which included Lionel Messi, wasn't fully recognised by the club's senior coaching staff.
"The reality is that Cesc left Barcelona because he wanted to," he recalled to the Mail on Sunday.
"This is what hurt people, that he said: 'I'm the one who wants to leave'. If he had stayed here he probably would have won more. But it was the same with Pique. He went to England to Manchester United and he didn't play well there, so we could buy him back quite cheap. Barca players never really want to leave but at that time the coaches weren't picking players from the Barca B and they feared there wouldn't be opportunities.
"Whenever it was Cruyff and me, we tried to bring in the youngsters, like Pep Guardiola, and give them a chance. The problem was other trainers came - the Dutch ones [Louis van Gaal and Frank Rijkaard] - who brought other Dutch players or players from outside Barca.
"Even Rijkaard didn't really recognise the full potential of Messi at first. Only when he played Messi in the Joan Gamper Cup, a preseason friendly, against AC Milan, did he begin to realise and started playing him with Eto'o and Ronaldinho."
