Noel Whelan insists it is a win for Arsenal to have offloaded Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the last transfer window, even though they haven’t signed a replacement.
The attacker had been a problem to Mikel Arteta and the Spaniard stripped him of the captain’s armband.
He was also banished from the Arsenal first team and he risked being another Mesut Ozil who stayed on the bench and earned the most money at the Emirates.
The former Borussia Dortmund striker wasn’t prepared to end his career that way and pushed to join Barcelona.
Arsenal agreed to tear up his contract for a simple compensation, less than half of the wages he would have collected if he remained at the Emirates.
His departure has left them short in attack, but former Leeds United man, Whelan insists the club did the right thing.
He tells Football Insider: “Arteta has done the right thing. I can imagine he will be chuffed to bits after saving £25million by getting rid of him.
“There was no way back for him, and now they can use that money to replace him.
“It’s good business at the end of the day, he was the highest earner.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
It is not a good thing that we haven’t added a new attacker to our squad, but offloading Aubameyang is a major win.
The striker was no longer in our first-team plans, and he could have spent the next 18 months collecting a huge salary without playing for us.
If his departure had been earlier, we probably would have signed a replacement.
We can do that in the summer. Hopefully, our current options will help us end this season well.