Wayne Rooney says midfielder Arsenal sold for £25m was actually even better than Frank Lampard

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Arsenal have had some fantastic midfield players in their history.

Patrick Vieira was an all-time great, Mesut Ozil had incredible technical gifts, while, even now, Declan Rice is a world-class player.

However, perhaps the best of the bunch was Cesc Fabregas.

The Spaniard was amazing for Arsenal, and speaking to Amazon, Wayne Rooney has now made quite the claim about the Gunners legend.

Rooney was asked to compare a number of Spanish legends to their English counterparts, and he was asked to pick who was better – Frank Lampard or Cesc Fabregas.

Rooney had to think about this one, but, ultimately, he picked Fabregas over Lampard.

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Wayne Rooney picks Cesc Fabregas over Frank Lampard

Rooney picked Fabregas over his former England teammate.

The striker picked Fabregas over Lampard, while he did mostly show a lot of bias towards England with his other picks.

Indeed, Rooney largely claimed that that Spain’s collection of legends were not better than England’s, and given how successful Spain were in the early 2010s, it’s difficult to understand why.

Of course, there’s some bias at play because many of these players were Rooney’s friends and teammates, but, a more objective pundit would probably give different answers

Wayne Rooney record vs Cesc Fabregas and Frank Lampard

Rooney knows both Fabregas and Lampard very well as players, and it’s interesting to see that he’s chosen Fabregas over the Chelsea legend.

Intriguingly, Rooney actually has a better win record against Fabregas than Lampard.

Indeed, Rooney has actually got an overall losing record when he played against Lampard, although, interestingly, Lampard’s scoring record against Rooney is nothing special, nor is Rooney’s against Lampard.

For one reason or another, Lampard and Rooney very rarely put in solid performances against one another.

The same can also be said of Fabregas and Rooney. Rooney only scored four goals in 20 matches against Fabregas, while the Spaniard netted just two goals in that time, with an even win/loss record.

Rooney believes that Fabregas was better than Lampard, and that is certainly a close run debate between two top players, who, at their best, were a pair of the Premier League’s greatest midfielders.

Arsenal would eventually sell Fabregas to Barcelona for £25m, and, to this day, you could argue he hasn’t truly been replaced.