Jeremy Aliadiere has slammed his former club Arsenal for their recent failings, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang‘s contract situation highlighting issues once again.
The Gabonese striker will be entering into the final 12 months of his playing contract in the next couple of weeks, and there is talk of an exit in the coming window.
Manchester United, Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Barcelona are all touted as potential suitors, but our former striker believes we should never have allowed ourselves to end up in this predicament.
Aliadiere said: “That’s why I just think it’s wrong management yet again. It should be sorted at two years. You should not let a player end up with a year left on his contract, especially a player like Aubameyang. It’s not right.
“I just think players are playing on it, they keep letting negotiations drag on and the next thing you know, he’s just got one year left.
“And now, how much are we going to sell him for with one year left? Arsenal are in the worst position you can imagine again because you’ve got a top quality player who assures you of 20-25 Premier League goals a season who is one year away from leaving on a free.
“Or, he gets sold to Barcelona or Real Madrid and for what? How much can you expect for him now? Nothing compared to what if you’d sold him last summer. They could have asked for £100 million ($121m).”
Unfortunately this isn’t the first time that we have allowed such a situation to arise, with Mesut Ozil recently holding us to ransom before signing a monster £350,000 per week contract, while Alexis Sanchez also forced a move to Manchester United with only six months remaining on his contract.
Our club was supposed to be stopping this sort of thing from happening, with Dick Law removed from his post as chief negotiator, but there has seemingly been little change.
Do the club need to hold their hands up and say ‘we messed up’? Could we still persuade Aubameyang to stay or even make him play out the year remaining on his contract?
Patrick
It is clear to me that the regular contract fiasco so obvious under snake Gazidis, has not improved at all. Sigh! If only we still had David Dein! Double sigh!!
Jon, why wasn’t it clear to you ages ago, when gazidis was pulling the strings, but hiding behind Wenger’s back?
He sold us all a dummy, when he brought on board the three musketeers (at god knows what price!!!) and it now turns out he taught them in the same way.
What was is, six months in the front line, after AW went, before he ratted out?
If there was top five list of the most disastrous people who were employed by our club, I would put him first, second, third fourth and fifth and in no particular order!!!!!
Mind you Jon, we shouldn’t take anything players say as the truth should we?
It WAS very clear back then and I often said so loud and clear. Or has your memory faded, Ken? Your final line is so true, though I suspect you don’t REALLY believe it yourself. Rather than “anything” though, I would use “not everything” as not all players routinely look to deceive . But a great number speak fan pleasing jargon and know they are speaking tosh but just don’t care. After all, though fans generally love THEM , they normally care nothing for fans whose individual existence they don;t even know about. Makes sense really, since most humans don’t routinely love people(fans!!) whose names they don’t even know.
Just a normal reflection of life and I ,GENERALLY SPEAKING, DON’T OVER MUCH BLAME PLAYERS FOR TALKING TOSH WHICH SUITS THEM AT THE TIME, since I am a total realist about how humans behave. Just my individual take as ever Ken.
Jon, I seem to remember that even after gazidis joined us in 2009, there were many on here, who didn’t blame him at all – rather it was the manager who was the fall guy – in fact, it was said AW was all powerful, isn’t that correct my friend?
It now seems that has been forgotten and gazidis has been unearthed as the culprit, by an enlightened few at least.
When he became chief executive, the official club statement said he would be taking over much of the work previously done by David Dein (sacked in 2007) and Keith Edelman, yet it was AW and not gazidis who was blamed – despite there being only two years between Dein and gazidis.
During these two years, life continued as before.
When gazidis left, ( in precis) this was what he said:
“for the last ten years I have been privileged to dedicate myself to this great club. This includes world-class facilities and outstanding leaders in every sector who carry the values of the club, including of course, Unai Emery, Raul Sallehi, and Vinai Venkatesham IN WHOM I HAVE GREAT FAITH.”
As every day goes by, the puzzle unravels and one has to ask, did this ever happen under DD and AW? Of course it didn’t and here we are today, with gazidis’s chosen men still doing exactly the same thing he was doing….without AW or UE.
I am not in the least surprised that the regular contract fiasco is still happening either and, perhaps now, fans will see who was the culprit – if you also now take that view, I congratulate you.
With regards to what players, coaches etc say, your view on “not everything” leaves it open to an accusation of “cherry picking”, so on the advise of you and TMJW, I am not paying any attention to anything being reported and will just rely on Arteta and the official website i.e. ozil’s new contract!!!