Posted by 11:00pm, January 31, 2018: Ivan Gazidis is no doubt sipping a celebratory glass of wine. He’d be forgiven for going through a bottle or two. Hours before, he and his staff had sealed the ~€65 million transfer of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Borussia Dortmund’s talismanic striker, and goal-scorer extraordinaire.
Sitting two places and eight points outside the Premier League top four at the time, Arsenal were in need of a marquee signing. Doing so would hopefully stem the “Wenger Out” brigade (it wouldn’t), and provide top-class talent to a team that had just lost Alexis Sanchez (it did).
A season before, 2016-17, Arsenal had missed out on top four by a single point, ending a run of 19 straight seasons in Europe’s top competition and representing the first concrete example of the slide they haven’t yet recovered from.
Two years later, Aubameyang’s status as Arsenal’s best player is without question. He scored 10 goals in 13 Premier League games to finish 2017-18, then followed up by netting 22 and sharing the Premier League Golden Boot in 2018-19.
But by any team-related measure, Aubameyang’s signing has been a failure. If second place is the first loser, fifth place for Arsenal equates to not even running the race.
It’s likely that without him, Arsenal would have finished farther outside the top four. Certainly there’s an argument that the club wouldn’t have advanced to the Europa League final without his eight goals in the competition—four in the two-legged semi-final vs. Valencia alone.
But two years and 57 goals on, Arsenal are no closer to Champions League football with him than they were without him. The 10 points they currently sit behind Chelsea are two more than in January 2018, and is the largest gap between Arsenal and fourth place since before top four was even a thing.
Aubameyang’s age doesn’t do him any favors either. Although the post-30 downturn that everyone predicted for him hasn’t happened, it can’t be far away. And with Arsenal years away from challenging for a Premier League title, and oddsmakers fifth choice to win the Europa League, he’ll likely never pull on the Arsenal shirt for a Champions League Tuesday or Wednesday.
What’s more, Arsenal’s current wage structure leaves little room for overpaying players at the tail end of their careers. Mesut Ozil’s anchor of a contract has proven particularly wasteful, and given Arsenal’s “Premier League wage bill on a Europa League budget,” giving Aubameyang a pay rise exceeding his €9.5 million annual salary (bonuses not included) does nothing to indicate lessons have been learned from previous mistakes.
There are other reasons an Aubameyang sale makes sense:
- The emergence of Gabriel Martinelli and the hype surrounding Eddie Nketiah.
- Alexandre Lacazette and Nicolas Pépé who, together with Aubameyang represent €200 million in transfer purchases over the past three seasons for a team that has repeatedly been forced into the loan market just to get bodies in the door.
- A patchwork backline that desperately needs reinforcing with established first team players that cost more than €10 million.
With just 18 months left on Aubameyang’s current contract, this January may be the last opportunity Arsenal have to recoup some of their €65 million outlay. They can’t afford to let him leave for free, as they did with Aaron Ramsey (and basically did with Alexis Sanchez).
Maybe Barcelona, PSG, and others are offering only six-month loan deals; if they are, Raul Sanllehi should tell them where to stick it. But if an offer of €30+ million comes in, Arsenal should take the money and run. Preferably towards Dayot Upamecano.