We had the strange occurence of the Arsenal striker Alexandre Lacazette pulling out of the France squad just two hours after being called up by Didier Deshamps as a replacement for Anthony Martial, and now we have Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang pulling out of his country’s crucial African Nations Cup game against Mali.
Gabon are just a point behind leaders Mali who have eight points. Third-placed Burundi are hot on their heels with six points, so the three points at home is absolutely crucial – but they will have to do without their most prolific striker. PEA has fallen out with FEGAFOOT in the last 2 international breaks as well, not least when they named his father as coach without waiting for his acceptance. This time though the Gunners hitman is over the Gabon governing body not acknowledging his doctor’s letter detailing an injury. PEA said on Twitter: “It’s weird that the football federation immediately publishes that a player cannot come (for national duty) for other reasons after they received an email from my doctor but still has not posted on it for more than 24 hours.”
It would appear that Aubameyang has very little interest in playing for his country, which is not such a bad thing for Arsenal as we now have both him and Lacazette at home and training with Unai Emery….
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In as much as it’s good to have them resting for us, If it gets too much then it’s wrong.. if PEA ain’t interested in playing then he should do what Ozil did and focus on club football… But he has good reasons anyway so it’s all cool, he’s injured.
BTW anyone fancy us getting Christensen from Chelsea? I really love his game. he’s a great defender who it seems ain’t in Sarri plan.. the problem is Chelsea won’t sell him to us easily
He seems to have a lot of potentials, but I don’t think he would cost under thirty millions
Too bad for his country and him, but this is good for Arsenal. Because they had problems with the African competition schedules, which forced Arsenal to let their important players go, such as Lauren, Adebayor, Song, Kanu, Eboue, etc
Aubameyang is not getting any younger, so he is wise if he can focus solely on his club career at this time
Aubameyang has an injury? Anyways, rumours are Aaron Ramsey is off to Bayern Munich on a free. Story is on The Independent. Great for us I believe as he will not be coming to bite us in the backside any time soon. Not so great as the club will now 2 years in a row miss out on valuable tranfer fees for reinvestment in the squad.
My view on ALL international players with us is this. The fewer games they play for their countries, the better for us. When all modern players need regular rests to avoid injuries and staleness, it is positive news if they DON’T play internationals, no matter what the reason. I am ambivalent to all international football in any case and like others on here dislike the blank Prem weekends. Each to their own of course, but international football just doesn’t raise my pulse as Prem games do.
17 PL goals from 25 games. That is a great statistic – esp considering he hasn’t started in all of our games, as well as starting from out wide with a large proportion of our games. He is also leading with assists this season, tied with Ramsey for now. The guy is devastatingly good. Their loss is our gain seems to be the consensus, and I’d go along with that too.
Not too bad for I want Burundi to qualify over Gabon East African countries are surprisingly doing great