Gabby Agbonlahor has claimed that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang deserves credit for leaving Arsenal in January, but I just can’t see it.
The striker clearly had a falling out with manager Mikel Arteta, which ultimately saw him dropped from the first-team squad in December with the club captaincy being taken from the striker, before he was eventually allowed to leave to join Barcelona.
Whether you solely blame Auba for losing his role in the team or not, I think it would be naive to believe that he was an innocent party in all of this, and I certainly don’t blame the club for moving to shift his wages from the budget either.
Agbonlahor claims that Arsenal were right to move him on also, before giving him credit for making the jump.
“Arteta was never going to play him for the club again,” Agbonlahor told the Football Insider.
“It would have been a tragedy if he had stayed because Arsenal would have been paying him £350,000-a-week and he was never going to play.
“It works for the club and it works for Aubameyang. He’s probably sick and tired of training on his own and now he gets to go to the best club in the world, for me, and play under Xavi.
“There’s talk of him taking a pay cut to go there, maybe it went down to £200,000-a-week or £250,000-a-week.
“You’ve got to give credit to Aubemeyang for going and having the hunger to play. Other players would have stayed at Arsenal for the next few months.
“He’s got a fresh start now. He’s at an iconic club. I’m happy for him to get that move.
“Players can get treated badly and this is a case where he was treated badly.”
I think giving him ‘credit’ is going too far, nor do I believe that he has given up much income by making the move to Barca.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Aubameyang had asked to leave before being stripped of the club’s captaincy, and I definitely blame his attitude for ultimately costing him his place in the manager’s first-team plans.
Aubameyang was always claimed to have wanted to make the move to the Nou Camp, so why anyone would think that he has given anything up that he didn’t want to, to get his wish of playing for Barcelona, is what I would call naive.
Patrick
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Respect to him not dragging out his contract like Ozil for the money
Ozil was frozen out and he did what he thought was right – honour the legally binding contract offered by the club, never being accused of breaking the club’s rules, never being publicly repremanded and never bringing the club into disrepute.
Aubemeyang decided to go another route and, according to some, went behind the clubs back to join Barca on a free, while still being paid by both clubs and with a golden handshake.
Broke the clubs rules so many times, it seems, he was dropped because of seriously flouting said rules by the manager himself.
So, taking the money issue out of the equation, who would one say let the club down more?
Ozil, Aubameyang… or the club for overseeing this farce?
Well, definitely the club. Ordinarily, if we’d wanted to get rid of players who weren’t meeting expectations, we’d sell them, maybe at a loss, but at least we wouldn’t be stuck with them for the duration of their contract. However we gave excessively large contracts to these players, so when they stopped performing, we couldn’t sell and they had no compulsion to leave. How many people realistically would give up those wages without the club taking extreme measures? In ozils case at least, it showed quite clearly that he was far more concerned with the money than playing football, but it was an enormous amount, and most people would have done the same – just don’t like portraying him as a good boy who was poorly treated, he was doing the minimum to keep getting paid, when the club expected more.
Have to say, at least auba’s contract was somewhat justifiable at the time – he was easily one of the top strikers in the league and our standout player by a distance. His complete loss of form was less predictable.
So Ozil was wrong and Aubameyang was right?
OK, forget that Auba broke the clubs rules on numerous occasions, while Ozil didn’t.
Just about the money then?
The club had already seen what offering such a ridiculous contract could do, so they repeat the error.
Great tactics by whoever….
I will credit Auba for getting out as quick as possible instead of causing a circus.
He did not behave like our famous scrounging “Shirt Selling Genius” last season. Causing disruption and drama throughout.
Repect for you Auba on that. And also a shout out to Willian.
👍
No drama?
Tell that to MA, who had to field questions about Aubameyang at every press conference.
Who was it that broke the clubs rules, as described by MA himself?
Agree about Willian, but he should never have been signed in to first place – another mistake.
Both Aubameyang and Ozil were in the right place at the right time and skilful agents enabled their clients to benefit exorbitantly from what can only be described as poor negotiating by the Arsenal hierarchy. Smacks of desperation.
@SueP
RealTalk…👍🏿
The classic problem with many of these assertions is that there is a lack of consideration of the context in which these contracts were given out.
That’s a distinct possibility but handing out excessively high value contracts to big name players just over the peak of their powers I was a big mistake and that is regardless of what the fans are baying for
OT: Auba almost scores his debut goal with his first touch
Another Auba article, this is getting like the Ozil departure when we were getting 5 a day! Get over it, move on.
Yes, almost, that’s the relevant word as he almost scored for us a few time this season too……..but didn’t.
I do agree Declan
Once the league starts again, I’m hoping the Auba stuff stops. I’m even less interested in how he gets on in Spain. Same feelings as I had for Ozil after he went. Neither are Arsenal players anymore
Applause from me Patrick for calling it exactly as it is! You are wiser than many Gooners who have been taken in by this idle chancer and whom I for one am thrilled to see him gone. Yes, thrilled, as he was harming our team and club and now cannot any longer.
Bit by bit, but steadily, ALMOST** ALL the wastrels, lazy coasters, trouble makers and effectively almost useless players are leaving or have left. At long last we have a man in charhge who PROPERLY realises that without proper disciplined players throughout our whole squad, we have no hope at all of making the very top.
**NO PRIZES FOR GUESSING WHICH PLAYER MOST OF US STILL WANT OUT NOW AND ASAP TOO!!