Nigel Winterburn claims that Arsenal’s decision to allow Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to leave in January will not be accepted if they don’t make the top four.
The Gunners allowed a number of players to leave the club in the winter window, whilst failing to add a single player to their current options, casting much doubt on the rest of the club’s campaign.
Auba’s departure was the biggest however, with the former club captain and highest earner having been allowed to leave for nothing, whilst leaving us short of numbers in attack.
Winterburn now believes that fans will not accept the decision if his side now miss out on the top-four.
“Everyone is scratching their heads over Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s departure from Arsenal,” the former defender told Paddy Power(via the Express). “We’ve heard parts of the story from two or three different sources, but we don’t have the full picture from both sides.
“Could both Aubameyang and Arsenal have dealt with it better? Yes, probably.
“It feels as if Aubameyang was the captain and then something went awry. Him losing the captaincy wasn’t based on a one-off issue – there were several.
“Mikel Arteta decided that ‘enough is enough, you’re the captain of this club and I am trying to lead a young team, and it’s not acceptable’.
“The problem with his departure is that it has left Arsenal short.
“If they finish fourth, then people will accept him leaving. If they don’t, then Arteta and Aubameyang should have put their differences aside until the season ends.
“It’s been such a strong stance from Arteta and the club, that they felt the best move was for Aubameyang to leave. Perhaps the Amazon documentary will reveal more.”
I think it would be harsh if Arteta or the club was judged on missing out on the top four on this decision, given the fact that we were far from guaranteed to land fourth with Auba in the side.
Should we miss out narrowly, you could argue either way really, but the bigger question for me would be why we didn’t bring in a replacement personally.
Do you really believe Auba was giving us enough up front this season?
Patrick
Yeah I don’t think auba was going to be the difference maker for top 4 – we’d be no less likely to make it playing without a striker imo.
The pressure should come if we fail to get CL football. The fact we blunted our attack and fail to get the best out of our strikers, should be seriously looked at if we fail. On the other hand Arteta may be able to stick two fingers up to all, if we do. I dont think he is getting out of this team what is being put in but i am happy to be proved wrong.
This will undoubtedly be the case should things go sideways…that said, I’m not convinced that this would be a fair and/or logical way to properly assess the manager come season’s end, as it would be impossible to know how things might have been different if he had stayed…the real problematic issue, which puts MA in the proverbial crosshairs, is the fact that no one was brought in as a replacement, short-term or otherwise
knowing all this, our form coming out of this extended break will be of utmost importance, as the only saving grace of our window “strategy”, is the hope that the remaining players get a tangible boost from this perceived vote of confidence…now if we’re flat and our lackluster play from January continues to be the norm, things could spiral quite quickly, which wouldn’t be a welcomed situation regardless of your personal thoughts on our present manager
Even if he had stayed, it would not have made any difference, he was out of the squad with very little chance of redemption. Don’t understand the relevance of Winterburn’s statement.
The fact that when Arteta joined, Auba was one of the best strikers in the league and scoring regular. I think Winterburn is referring to that fact, we are trying to get fourth, our attack is firing blanks and when we need goals, Auba wasn’t and now isnt going to help out. Its easy to blame Auba and time will tell if the decision was correct or not but from Winterburns side as an ex professional, you dont sell players that can get goals. I think he is saying, its the managers job to get your strikers scoring, not fall out with them and give them away.
* one of the best in the world