Kevin Phillips claims that Arsenal may have to buy Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang out of his current contract.
The Gunners have been playing without the striker for the last three Premier League matches following his fall-out with the manager, with Auba absent from the playing squad entirely, and it remains to be seen when he will be brought back into the side.
There are plenty of rumours to claim that there is interest in his signature at present, including rumours of a potential bid in the coming window, but former Premier League goalscorer Phillips believes it will be difficult to offload Auba.
“I’d get rid,” KP told the Football Insider. “This is not the first time something like this has happened.
“He has had a poor season. He is the captain and he should be leading by example and he hasn’t. It is really poor from his point of view.
“At his age, it will be tough to get rid of him. Nobody is going to pay what he is on at Arsenal. I can see it being another case where Arsenal need to bite the bullet and give him a pay off. They may have to take this one on the chin.
“Sometimes you have to set examples. Arteta has done that by stripping him of the captaincy.
“For me, that only leads to one thing and that’s Aubameyang leaving at the end of the season.”
I think there are very few fans who would be against the departure of Auba in the near future, but paying him off simply makes no sense. If Auba wants to leave, he can find himself a club who is willing to pay him, otherwise he can do the job he’s paid for.
I think the best idea at this moment in time would be to move him on in January, but only if we can source a suitable replacement to keep our season on track, as a strong end to the current campaign is needed.
If we can hold onto our spot in fourth until the end of the term, it will have a big impact on our transfer window, and I can’t tell you how much it will mean to play Champions League football again.
Could Arsenal really be forced to pay Aubameyang off? Has his stock dropped that low?
Patrick
A ridiculous assertion.
A very strong opinion from an outsider(Some one in the Arsenal camp). That is well beyond speculative.
not*
this is definitely a possibility, unless something drastically changes between now and season’s end…maybe an exceedingly low price tag will be in the offing so as to offset any purchasing club’s financial concerns about his pending salary for next year
regardless of what ultimately transpires this was handled poorly from the get-go…the same manager who convinced him to re-up, likely with assurances regarding his continued captaincy and his ability to thrive within the scheme provided, threw him under the boss in a highly publicized fashion on two separate occasions, when it suited his personal agenda, without taking any responsibility whatsoever for how his negative tactics may have factored into the equation
of course, Auba certainly isn’t devoid of blame, especially for some of his more recent shocking misses or tardiness concerns, but neither of these issues were worthy of the mountain out of a molehill approach MA intentionally pursued…not to mention, he certainly wasn’t quick to publicly protect our captain in the last 14 plus months when many were attacking Auba’s for his lack of production, even though it was far more scheme-driven than player-specific…for me it’s incredibly hypocritical for someone who loves him some camera time to completely flip the script and become a shrinking violet whenever it doesn’t suit his particular self-indulgent narrative