Jermaine Pennant has claimed that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would be open to joining Newcastle in January, with his Arsenal career in the balance.
The former winger joined Arsenal at the age of 16 but struggled to earn a regular role in the first-team before eventually leaving to join Birmingham back in 2005.
He now works as a pundit with Stadium Astro, and claimed that Aubameyang’s priority will be to get back playing regular football again, and believes Newcastle have a great chance of persuading him to join from north London this month.
“As a professional footballer, it doesn’t matter, you want to play football,” Pennant told Stadium Astro.
“And if it is not happening at Arsenal, he won’t want to sit there on the weekend watching his teammates play while he is sat at home, he will want to play football.
“He’s a great player and he will want to showcase that. It could be chance to get another big move off the back of that.
“Getting stripped of a captaincy, there is not really much coming back from that. We know he is not going to be a starter, we know he’s not going to get much game time.
“There is every chance this Newcastle deal could come off for sure.”
In my opinion, Aubameyang’s recent disciplinary breaches tell me that his priority at present isn’t playing football however. It sounds as though he is distracted by certain things that are happening away from the pitch, and it has allowed his relationship with Mikel Arteta to fade away.
Auba may well want football to be a distraction from whatever is going on behind the scenes, and his time away from the club could well give him some perspective, but I don’t think that we will hear too much until he does make his return to the club after the AFCON.
Can you see Auba at Newcastle before the close of the transfer window?
Patrick
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