Trevor Sinclair has become the latest individual to fault Mikel Arteta’s handling of his problem with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after the striker left the club.
Auba had been banished from the first team after extending his stay on a trip the club had permitted him to see his mum. That didn’t sit well with Arteta, and the manager stripped him of the captain’s armband and banished him from the first team.
The striker was isolated from the rest of the senior team and he eventually secured a transfer to Barcelona in the last window and has been in solid form at the Spanish club.
Former Premier League star, Sinclair does not agree with Arteta on how the issue was handled and said on Talk Sport:
‘His mum wasn’t well. He [Aubameyang] was probably having a tough time.
‘That might have been one of the reasons why he was late and he had a couple of situations where he and Arteta didn’t agree on.
‘I think it was dealt with wrong. If you think about a managers objective, it’s about how to get the best out of the player or get the most for him. And I don’t think Mikel Arteta did either.
‘He didn’t get the best out of the player, whether that was out of control because of what was going on with his mum or out of his control because he didn’t deal with the pandemic well, we don’t know.
‘But he certainly wasn’t getting the best out of him for the last 12-18 months of his contract while he was at Arsenal.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
Auba and Arteta had already fallen out when he didn’t keep to a timeline that the club clearly spelt out for him.
Their relationship would have taken an awkward turn if he had remained in the team and he wasn’t even scoring the goals we needed from him at the time.
It was the best decision to sever ties with him and everyone is making progress without each other now, which is the most important thing.