Have Arsenal lost the fight?

Arsenal midfielders Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri are both close to finalising moves away from the club. Fabregas is on the verge of signing for European champions Barcelona for a fee believed to be about £35m.

BBC Sport also understands that Nasri is set to move to Manchester City with the clubs close to agreeing a fee between £22m and £24m.

According to a senior Arsenal source, all the funds generated by Fabregas's sale will be reinvested in new players. The Gunners have been linked with Scott Dann, Phil Jagielka and Gary Cahill. Gunners boss Arsene Wenger looks intent on strengthening his defence and reports have suggested centre-backs Dann of Birmingham, Everton's Jagielka and Cahill of Bolton could be targets.

Fabregas, 24, would be unable to feature for Barcelona in the Champions League if he plays a part in Arsenal's match with Udinese on Tuesday, motivating both clubs to complete a deal before that game. BBC Sport understands a fee of £30m, plus over £5m of additional performance-related payments, is close to being reached for Fabregas.

Nasri's value to Arsenal would decrease to zero if he is allowed to run down the final year of a contract he signed with the club on joining from Marseille in July 2008. But manager Arsene Wenger suggested in July that he would prefer to let the France international leave for free next summer rather than sell. Wenger also claimed that the departure of both players would send the wrong message to their own players and their rivals.

"If we lose Fabregas and Nasri - you cannot convince people you are ambitious after that," he said. It is believed that, if Fabregas is sold, the Spaniard will be due £4m in compensation - £1m for each year of his contract he did not complete - but may be prepared to forego that payment in order to facilitate a deal. Negotiations have been conducted by Barcelona's vice-president Josep Maria Bartomeu and is believed to be a final take-it-or-leave-it offer, leaving Arsenal having to sell one of the major assets or keep a player who has his heart set on a move.

The transfer fee is significantly less than the £40m that Arsenal had been holding out for and suggests that the Gunners felt they had no choice but to sell a player who wanted to leave. Fabregas, who has 58 caps for Spain, joined Arsenal from the Catalan giants in 2003 and, since making his name in north London, has been persistently linked with a return to his boyhood club. Barcelona made their first formal offer for Fabregas in June 2010.

Grizzly wrote:SOF - marquee players are not Wengers style, I really don't see him spending stupid money - when Liverpool panicked they got raped by Newcastle over Carroll when the better forward had already been signed in a more structured way for a little more than half the money, the clock can dictate the price in some situations, that and of course the passport....