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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