Arsenal's cognoscenti say that when Cesc Fábregas plays a pass "the ball has information on it". This means that the little maestro is not just playing his own game but is controlling his team-mates by imposing his sense of space and its possibilities on them.

Only special footballers can shape the careers of others by orchestrating play on their behalf. The slipped Fábregas pass will force a lesser colleague to abandon his own idea of where a run might take him and submit instead to the captain's geometrical brilliance. This is a majestic sight but it is also where Arsenal's problem starts. Fábregas is the boy who was forced to take over the class.

Which other team does this choreographic skill evoke? Correct: Barcelona, the club of Fábregas's blood. To some in Catalonia the quest to bring him home is akin to Greece's campaign to repatriate the Elgin marbles. There is real hope this time, with Arsenal losing home and away to Chelsea and Manchester United and Fábregas senior telling Catalan radio on Thursday that the time to discuss his son's future would be "at the end of the season".

Wenger's great Arsenal project demands endless faith from the congregation. Do not forsake me, he begs. No one carries a heavier burden of devotion than Fábregas, the player who best exemplifies Wenger's vision of how the game ought to be played. The trouble is, the manager asks the lost boy of Catalonia not only to stay true to somebody else's scheme but to gamble with his own shot at greatness.

To watch Fábregas carry the Arsenal midfield in some games is to ask how long he can reasonably be expected to serve as a high-class private tutor to Alex Song and Abou Diaby, not to mention the sprites, Samir Nasri, Theo Walcott, Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey. In the 1-0 defeat of Liverpool on Wednesday night Fábregas played an exquisite 30-yard, 45-degree pass through a thicket of Liverpool bodies to Diaby, who miscontrolled it and ruined the moment. The clumsiness of Nicklas Bendtner around the Liverpool penalty box must have been a further irritation.

Fábregas is 22 and much too young to be Wenger's lecturer on the field. He has his own potential immortality to attend to. Arsenal's campaign, meanwhile, is tantalisingly poised between a possible late-season flourish in a run of 12 winnable Premier League games and the discrediting of Wenger's fidelity to this group of players. Too few warriors is a persistent diagnosis. The team's most gifted artiste will know by May whether to pack up his Hampstead home or renew his vows to Wenger's dream.

Plainly the time has come for him to decide whether he is part of an unfolding miracle or a manager's hallucination. Let no one throw the loyalty card in his chops. In an interview in this month's Champions magazine his subconscious yields the first lines of a farewell speech. "I've given my all for Arsenal, I've played when I've felt ill, and through injury," he says. "I even played in the Champions League a few hours after my grandfather died."

In Wednesday's programme notes he warned: "As a team we need to be stronger. We can't hide behind people saying we are too young, or have injuries. We just have to compete." Always, when you see him trying to instil drive and authority into a sometimes flimsy Arsenal midfield, you wonder how unplayable he would be now alongside Patrick Vieira in his prime.

External forces conspire against Arsenal as they look for ways to repel Europe's champions. One is Barcelona's inability to forgive themselves for losing him until the wrong is put right. The Fábregas clan are part of Camp Nou's extended family. Carles Puyol and Gerard Piqué are among his closest friends. And Fábregas so often looks like a Barcelona player who happens to be wearing a red and white top. Pep Guardiola, the coach, would not hesitate to import the dilemma Spain already have: how to fit Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Fábregas into a starting XI.

Most ominously, in the political dimension, a Barcelona presidential election is due in June (if only Portsmouth or West Ham could have had the odd leadership ballot, a little scrutiny, a whiff of democracy). There would be no greater bribe in the race to succeed Joan Laporta than to parade the recaptured Barça wonder boy around Camp Nou.

For Cristiano Ronaldo and Fábregas to return to Iberia inside 12 months would establish a symbolic turning point for the Premier League. The world's best teenage talent can be lured here but maybe they cannot be persuaded to stay more than five years, tops. A spectacular reason is needed for Fábregas to ignore the siren call of home again. Arsenal have three months to find it.

Cause of the week

It was decent of Avram Grant to plead Portsmouth's case before the high court hearing that earned them a seven-day reprieve – but football cannot keep calling itself a special case and stiffing HM Revenue & Customs. "It is a passion, it is not like any other business," Grant argued. True. A lot of "other businesses" don't treat their customers with contempt, erect complex ownership structures to hide the financial truth or think themselves above the law.

Some clubs treat the taxman like a Jehovah's Witness. Let him knock, they say. Tiresome little man. All part of the greed and arrogance.

When the World Cup means injury time

Bravo to those who drew February in the sweepstake for England's first injury crisis. Obliging as ever, Ashley Cole has taken his turn on the will-he-won't-he rota. David Beckham and Wayne Rooney can stand down now. They did their stints at the last two World Cups.

If Cole's broken ankle fails to heal in time, England could go to South Africa with a right-back (Glen Johnson) who is susceptible to balls played in behind him and a left-back (Wayne Bridge) who might strangle John Terry if the referee turns his back. Cole's mishap raises the value of Terry to Fabio Capello's team, even if England need a Perspex security screen to separate the two defenders, as boxing has been known to do at weigh-ins.

This is an old refrain, but the lack of depth in several positions is an indictment of the English coaching system. A personal preference at left-back is Stephen Warnock, who attacks and defends with equal gusto. Some senior figures predict Capello will not gamble with Johnson's defensive weaknesses and will deploy Wes Brown instead. Only four months for the rest to avoid breaking anything.

Five things we've learned about the England rugby team

1 Buzzwords don't last. Last autumn it was "trust" and now it's "freedom". But in the debrief from the Wales game the England coaches spoke of "too much rugby" being played when they led 20-3. Some in Martin Johnson's set-up are institutionalised: they don't trust freedom.

2 Passing is in a dismal state across the home unions, particularly England. Handling skills are in disrepair. Gerald Davies, the Lions manager and Wales great, writes: "With such inaccuracy the flow falters, pace diminishes, defences flourish. Little wonder that the southern hemisphere teams are ahead of the game."

3 Jonny Wilkinson made only five passes against Wales. If he can't loosen up England should find a more smooth-wristed quarterback.

4 The old guard still carry the next generation. Johnson has depended on Lewis Moody, Simon Shaw, Mark Cueto and Steve Borthwick to set the tone. With a World Cup next year, England need colts to become thoroughbreds.

5 A second win, against Italy in Rome today, would oblige England to win their first Six Nations title for seven years. Ireland, the champions, have to come to Twickenham. "Rebuilding" is now a fig leaf.