Ray Parlour speculates that Mikel Arteta feared he could lose the dressing room if he didn’t get rid of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The striker left the club to join Barcelona on transfer deadline day. It is a move that was in the making after he was banished from the first team for a disciplinary problem.
That wasn’t the first time he has had an issue with keeping to instructions at the club and Arteta had to act.
The Spaniard is rebuilding the current Arsenal team, and he needs only players with the right mindset.
Arsene Wenger was a non-confrontational manager, and some players got away with a few things during the last months of his Arsenal reign.
Former Arsenal star, Parlour believes that contributed to his downfall and Arteta wants to avoid that.
He tells TalkSport: ‘He didn’t like confrontation, Arsene Wenger. He didn’t like having arguments and maybe towards the end of his run people took the mick a little bit.
‘Mikel Arteta might have been part of that and he’s probably learned from that.
‘You can’t do that because suddenly you lose the dressing room and we saw what happened to Arsene Wenger.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
It is clear that Auba had done too much to undermine Arteta’s authority at the club.
If the Spaniard had allowed him to keep getting away with indiscipline, other players in the squad may not have taken the manager’s instruction seriously.