Why David Silva still has some way to go to replace Cesc Fabregas as Premier League's best ever Spaniard

I was recently asked by Sky to nominate who I thought was the best Spansih player ever to play in the Premier League? Simple, I thought and I can hear all of you out there, as I initially did, scream one name in particular – David Silva.

And indeed, the Canary Islander, Silva has been worth more than his weight in gold to Manchester City and is unquestionably the outstanding Spanish Premier League player this season.

But that wasn’t the question and the more I thought about it, the more I realised that it wasn’t anything like as cut and dried as I first imagined and while Silva has been the standout player this time around has he been the best ever to grace what many believe to be the best league in the world? I don’t think so, not yet anyway, although that isn’t to say he won’t be eventually.

There have been many players who have graced the Premier League with distinction and given the time to think I realised there was one in particular that we seemed to have forgotten about and who has been around so long we almost seem to have taken him for granted – Cesc Fabregas.

More on why I have gone for him later but who are the other contenders?

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David de Gea arrived in the UK from Atletico Madrid and originally looked in awe of the competition but I remember telling people not to jump to conclusions too early. Under the stewardship of the coaching legend that was Sir Alex Ferguson, he has gone on to become, along with Barcelona’s Ter Stegen, in my opinion, the best goalkeeper in the world.

Manchester United may well be lagging 11 points behind City this year, but everyone at the club will know – Jose Mourinho in particular – that were it not for his Madrid-born keeper, the gap would be considerably greater.

Juan Mata has also done great things in England winning a Champions league, two Europa Leagues, an FA Cup and a League Cup, although I was amazed to see that he has never won a Premier League title.

Nor in fact has Xabi Alonso although following that memorable night in Istanbul does have a Champions League medal on his wall and has also changed the perception of English soccer fans towards Spanish players and what they could bring to the English game. He now looks set to move into a coaching career sooner rather than later and I am convinced he will equally be successful in that department as well.

But the more I thought, the more I returned to Cesc, and the more I realised that sometimes you can’t see what’s under your nose.

He has played for 12 years in the Premier League and historically has the greatest number of assists of any player and has won three Premier Leagues. Internationally, of course, he has two European Championships and one World Cup under his belt, but more on that later.

I have known Cesc since he arrived in England as a quiet, sensitive, 16-year-old boy with possibly the worst haircut I have ever seen – a tightly cropped affair with a long straggly pony tail, the sort of tonsorial experiment that only callow youth would ever consent to have carried out on them.

The first time we spoke was at the Amsterdam Trophy when he had only just recently joined Arsenal’s first team squad aged 17.

Fast forward a few years later and I took him him back to Barnet to see the family he had stayed with when he first arrived in the UK, one of the family homes used by Arsenal to house their young players.

In a moment that I will never forget, as funny as it was poignant, coming down the stairs to greet us was a young Fran Merida, barefoot, dishevelled, sleepy, wearing a loose fitting T-shirt and a pair of boxer shorts.

“That was me three years ago,” said Cesc.

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A room three metres by two, with just a sound system for company, away from your country, away from your friends and family, working hard to learn another language and adapt to another culture. These are the times that make you or break you. Often it isn’t just about football.

What he developed was a self defence, survival mode. At the beginning it was all fine and dandy but as so often happens with the type of forums where supporters vent their spleen while, initially they might cut you a bit of slack, as familiarity starts to breed contempt so the criticism started after a bad game, or a poor run, or whatever.

It affected him badly, not least because he could not understand why supporters were unable to comprehend that playing badly or well, or indifferently was not a matter of personal choice but something that simply happened in the world of football, something very often out of his control.

I remember also a childlike innocence on an occasion when I organised a fashion photoshoot that his house, probably the first – though certainly not the last – he ever did. The company in question brought along a whole host of clothes and I recall his unbridled, almost naive, joy when he learnt that he could actually keep some of the clothes after the shoot.

When playing on the Playstation with him he told me that sometimes he played online and that you can talk to your opponent. On one memorable occasion when playing under another name, he found himself being substituted on the game by his opponent. “What are you taking Cesc off,” he asked his opponent. “He’s having a great game.”

He is now one of the elder statesmen of the game, but deep down I still see the competitive kid who likes to win all the time and who struggles when he loses, or when his achievements are not properly recognised. Last week I was guilty of that.

There isn’t a midfielder in the Premier League that does not consider him the very toughest of competitors and I now believe that what he feels he has no reason to back down from anyone because he has earned the right to be afforded the maximum level of respect from each and everyone of his peers.

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For me he will always be remembered as the man who changed the course of Spanish footballing history. He was just 19 when he scored the fifth and winning penalty against Italy in the quarter finals of the 2008 European Championships and in the process he ripped off once and for all the yoke around the neck of the Spanish football team that had labelled them as perennial under achievers and chokers.

From that moment on Spain never looked back. They went on to win back to back European Championships and, lest we forget, it was Cesc’s pinpoint pass to Andres Iniesta that led to Spain’s winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final, a moment that will forever be remembered as his greatest ever assist.

Had he missed that spot kick who knows what history would say about the Spanish national side? Sometimes courage, determination, single-mindedness and resolve are forged not as Wellington asserted on the ‘playing fields of Eton’ but rather in a three metres by two metres room in a home in Barnet.

I salute him.