We all know now that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had to have an operation on his sinuses which is why he missed the Arsenal’s defeat against Wolves. But Unai Emery has revealed that he actually chose which game Aubz would miss.
“We were waiting but then the doctor told us we needed to be as quick as possible for him,” explained Emery. “We decided two weeks ago to do it for Wednesday. Otherwise it would have had to be for this game on Sunday. It was not possible for him to miss the match against Valencia, or Brighton – it was not possible.
“We also decided not to do it against Crystal Palace or Napoli. But the doctor said to do it as quickly as possible because he needed it done. We decided this match was the best in those weeks.”
Was that the right decision? Personally I would have thought that the home game against Brighton would have been the obvious choice. Or if you look at it another way, if it was urgent two weeks ago why wasn’t it done immediately?
To be honest I don’t think it was so urgent, considering that he was not left on the bench during that time, and he also scored goals against Watford and Crystal Palace. So I wonder why Emery chose the Wolves game over Brighton. Could it because he thought that was the game we were most likely to lose anyway?