BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Cesc Fabregas’ potential move to boyhood club Barcelona continued to gather steam yesterday after the Arsenal playmaker confirmed a conversation with Arsene Wenger where he seemed to signal his desire to leave the English club.

“He doesn’t want me to leave and my last conversation with him in London was one of the most difficult of my life. It was very painful,” Fabregas said in an interview released by Spanish magazine DIR Emotions.

“He’s a second father to me, the most important person in my life after my family. He’s always behaved so well with me and taken me in like a son, I’m part of his family.”

Fabregas’ tight bond with Wenger does not seem enough to keep him from returning to the Catalan club, where he came through the ranks before moving to north London as a teenager.

“I am Barca — I’m a club member, my grandfather, my uncle, my cousin (are)… I’ve felt for these colours since I was little,” Fabregas said in an interview which was held before he traveled to South Africa to help Spain win the World Cup.

“Nevertheless, I’m captain at Arsenal, a Gunner, and it was there that I became a player, where I matured as a person.”

Barcelona have already made an unsuccessful bid for the 23-year-old Fabregas and Wenger has been steadfast in his refusal to sell his most prized player.

Speculation about the transfer increased after Spain’s World Cup celebrations in Madrid, when Carles Puyol and Gerard Pique put a Barcelona jersey on Fabregas.