Barcelona is going through a weird time of transition. 

The Més Que Un Club identity has been tested by the manner in which they acquired Neymar and by spending £75 million on a player that weeks before bit an opponent at the World Cup. 

Lionel Messi is making pouty comments in the media about his future at Barcelona, which may be due to how he’s being used by Luis Enrique or because he feels as though he’s been singled out by the Spanish tax authorities.

Sales of their kit are down and Nike is reportedly lobbying for horizontal stripes.

On the pitch, Barcelona is just two points behind Real Madrid in La Liga despite not getting Suárez off suspension until late October. They’re still figuring out how the on-paper dream trio of Suárez, Messi and Neymar finds their chemistry, but the lack of quality in midfield has been utterly shocking to see. Their defense has been much maligned in the past, but they’ve allowed just six goals in La Liga (three to Real Madrid), as the link-up play in midfield just hasn’t been remotely to Barça standards. Xavi looks older than old, Andrés Iniesta has been injured and Ivan Rakitic hasn’t made the type of impact they were expecting when they bought him for €15 million from Sevilla.

All of this is taking place while Real Madrid’s midfield options of Toni Kroos, Luka Modric, Isco, James Rodríguez and now Jése have looked like transcendent and very Vine-worthy. We’re just 3.5 seasons away from the 10-11 Barça team that can make a persuasive argument as being the best club ever assembled.

Meanwhile in London, Cesc Fàbregas and Alexis Sánchez have quickly become two of the best five players in the Premier League and are maximalists when it comes to that old saying of living well being the best revenge. Both players came in and went out at the same time after three frustrating seasons in which Barça were unable to utilize either player to their full potential.

Alexis ranks third in goals behind Sergio Agüero and Diego Costa with nine, while playing from a far deeper position.

Fabregas ranks first in the EPL in assists with 10, as well as key passes with 3.2 per game.

Alexis finishes every match with a filthy uniform and gives Arsenal a sense of urgency and “will to win” that has too frequently been lacking in the cerebral, possession based stoicism of Arsène Wenger football. At the moment without Mesut Özil, Arsenal basically looks like a mid-table club plus Alexis with his sphere of influence going even beyond how he’s filling a stat sheet.

Alexis has made a tremendous impact on the play of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain on the other flank and the hope is that he makes a similar type of intangible impact of contagion upon Özil. Along with Alexis, Özil is comfortably the most talented player on Arsenal’s roster but is his complete opposite in terms of the intangibles.

Oxlade-Chamberlain has played with more confidence and energy, along with a similar work rate that puts Alexis on another level. Oxlade-Chamberlain has compared the impact Alexis has made to that of Suárez on Liverpool.

"He reminds me of Luis Suarez when he chases everything down and he makes nothing into something,” said Oxlade-Chamberlain in late October.

Alexis’ production without the luxury of receiving any type of reliable service, which Özil should help rectify when he returns from injury, has made the quick transition all the more impressive. Arsenal has underachieved and it has been Alexis propping up their season like Atlas.

Barcelona’s team system minimized the potential impact of Alexis’ individual dynamism and he still managed to score 19 goals last season. Arsenal has become Alexis’ club and while that club is a long ways away from being among the true elite, he flourishes individually now as he does playing for Chile and when he was a breakout star at Udinese.

If Chelsea does go undefeated in the Premier League to match Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ of 03-04, it will be because of how perfectly the partnership of Fabregas and Nemanja Matić controls the middle of the pitch in their double pivot. Matić is a broad-bodied 6’4 with attacking capabilities playing a defensive role, while Fabregas is a slim but tough 5’9 that gets that protection from his partner to brilliantly unlock a defense playing very conservatively to setup Costa and Eden Hazard moving forward in the final third from a deeper position than he’s ever really played before.

Fabregas returned home to Barça and was asked to provide a little bit of false nine here and No. 10 there while always accommodating their existing midfielders. It never worked out to match what Fabregas accomplished back at Arsenal and he become the scapegoat in the eyes of many at the club. There was a question of whether he was simply a very old 27 with all those miles accumulated from being such a young prodigy as a teenager at Arsenal, but that brilliant “football brain” was waiting for José Mourinho to unleash.

The freedom and control Fabregas gets at Chelsea, along with the permission to not be beholden to possession for possession sake as he did at Arsenal and Barcelona, has turned him into arguably the most indispensible player on the undisputed best club in England. There is a lot of season remaining and the frequent complaint from Barcelona was that Fabregas would start strong before fading, but the joy he plays with at Chelsea ironically enough and how he’s used makes that an unlikely scenario.

Clubs like Barcelona have the luxury to hit the reset button to transform their club, amputating a few limbs to save the patient often feels like the safer medicine.

Trading out Alexis for Súarez is an understandable decision for a club with the resources of Barça, but not loading up on Fabregas as the unequivocal heir to Xavi is baffling. Maybe there was too much history between player and club in which the trust was gone and moving forward was unworkable, but that lauded trio will continue to be an island going uphill until Barcelona solves their midfield or as Pep Guardiola has done at Bayern and reconsiders its entire football philosophy. With a 2015 transfer ban, the last thing Barça could afford to do was send out two players as productive as Fabregas and Alexis.