Arsene Wenger says that the deal to bring Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to Arsenal was a complicated one which went right to the wire, but that it was absolutely vital to add more firepower during the transfer window.
The Gunners moved Alexis Sanchez, Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud who, between them, scored 60% of the team’s goals last season, so despite people wondering if it means the end for Alexandre Lacazette, it’s clear that the former Borussia Dortmund man is here to augment the squad.
Wenger was pressed about the deal at his press conference this morning, and admitted there were many moving parts before it all came to a conclusion.
“It was difficult because of course Dortmund wanted a replacement,” he said.
“First we had to agree the transfer deal with them and then after that we had to wait for them to find somebody who could replace him.
“That was a little bit of a cryptic deal because Giroud went to Chelsea and Batshuayi went to Dortmund. That’s why it was very short in time and very tense until the end.”
As for what the Gabonese international would bring to the team, the manager highlighted his pace, something that we’ve been lacking in recent times a bit.
“He’s a typical striker with great pace and a good ratio of games and goals scored,” he said.
“He has a good work rate as well and is a team player. We lost some goals because we lost Alexis, Giroud and Walcott who are all goalscorers. He will compensate on that front.
“I’ve known him for a long time, he has played against Arsenal many times. He likes the way we play football and he needed a new challenge, certainly. We were the ones who could offer that to him.”
There’s also the potential for Aubameyang to dovetail nicely with his former Dortmund teammate Henrikh Mkhitaryan, and Wenger was hopeful they’d be able to do for Arsenal what they did for the Bundesliga side.
“I hope so, yes,” he said when asked if they could click in the red and white.
“They are players who have played together, who know each other well and have had a successful period together.
“We are an offensive team and that’s why I hope they can recreate that perfect understanding they had at Dortmund.”
yawn.
So pedestrian and boring.
So boring you had to comment
haha
Exciting to have them back together in the prime of their careers.
Strange transfer window! We lost a Coq, but gained a Mhiki.
A week after letting go of his Coq, Wenger grabs Mo’s Mhki!
Bloody hell, it’s Friday… I don’t need that image going into a weekend. Match of the Day will be worse than usual now.
Time to bring back the classic 4-4-2! Auba and Laz up top… classic British central core of Rams and Wils – all guts and glory… Oz and Mhki on the wings – flair and silk… more Britishness with Holding and Chambers flanked by our two Spaniards at the back!
A mid of Jack and Rambo is a disaster. They’re the same kind of players. I’d say Jack and Elneny. Can’t see Wenger going back to 442 though… But man can dream no? ?
To my eyes Wilshire creates chaos in our opponents game while Ramsey creates chaos in ours.
Godfrey man ! That’s the funniest yet most accurate comparison of the two I’ve ever heard. Well done !
Thank you! I’m here all week. 🙂
And before recent injury, rambo had more assists than ozil. Just in case you didnt know.
You need to go to specsavers. And you called me a sad little troll? Lol
I go to a more high end opticians than that and I’m happy with the job they do. Hasn’t clouded my perspective one bit.
So insults aside, what did I say that you don’t agree with? Why am I factually wrong?
I agree, but fortunate enough to be there when rambo scored 2 winning goals in 2 f.a.cup finals and will treasure the memories and not hear a bad word spoken about the welsh jesus… who probably saved wengers job sob sob. Wengerout kroenkeout. As for the trolling i wll leave that to you….
Sometimes he does great things. Most of the time I just see him waste chances. Whether that is down to how he’s managed or if it’s that he is just ill disciplined is down to someone more knowledgeable than myself to say.
So originally 30 million was asked for Giroud and Chelsea, the cunts, didn’t rate him at that price so we relented and let them have him for 18 million. Just like that. And now we have our three strikers, one who is struggling through the usual adjustment period, one who has no PL experience at all and then Danny No Goals. That’s it!
Like someone said in a previous thread, when we struggle for goals in the EL and our only answer is Welbeck…fucking hell!
Aubameyang had to come in – a real upgrade on Giroud, don’t forget that. If the consequence of a “devalued” Giroud is Aubameyang reuniting with Mkhitaryan, and hopefully recreating the deadly partnership that took the Bundesliga and Europe by storm two seasons ago, I can certainly live with that.
Some people can actually moan!
I know I’m moaning, but there is the issue of what tends to be a year long settling in period. I don’t know of any player arriving from a foreign league that hasn’t had them. So we are likely to be weak in attack for a while. I could be proven wrong, and if so apart from being ecstatic that he hit the ground running I’ll also concede. Right now it looks like we’ve played a long game without much back up. And then we strengthened our opponent. I mean give me some credit here, especially knowing the fickle nature… Read more »
“…moan for a living” you meant?
He’ll start banging them in for Chelsea and as their game picks up they’ll be laughing their arses off as we continue to hobble through the season. And they got him at a bargain bin price.
This is quite possibly one of the most clueless comments I’ve ever read on arseblog.
OK then:
Giroud was not worth at least 30 million?
Lacazette is not struggling at the moment?
Aubameyang has PL experience?
Danny Welbeck is a prolific goal scorer?
Clueless?
Would you rather have kept Giroud and miss out on Aubameyang in the process?
It’s a good question and I’ve been pondering that over the last few days. We need to build and strengthen for the future. So in that respect, no of course not. I know that Lacazette and Aubameyang will come good eventually. But that’s the stumbling block, they are not there yet and during that transition we’ve let go of our only credible answer to when we aren’t scoring. And as I’ve moaned about already, to Chelsea. YUCK!
Long term we’ll be alright but for now we risk sitting with our arses exposed.
I just worry constantly Arsene would get his team selections wrong. That has been one of the major problems in the past few seasons. We have got a nice crop of players and a manager bereft of ideas on how to combine them. Got the nagging feeling Walcott and Giroud over at Cuntyard are going to be good for their new clubs cause their managers will play to their strengths. Its happenned with Ox already. Laca is a very good forward who is yet to light up the league but he hasn’t underperformed considering how much supply he has been… Read more »
Given another chance to play with his Micki I hope Oba will do a splendid job putting the balls in as well. I’ll get my coat.
bring back the glory days of our number 7 and number 14 working magic together
Yes arsene we are a very offensive team. Ive been offended for many seasons at our inability to be just a little bit more defensive.
as I said before, arsen only you made it difficult , otherwise it would have been an easy transfer done weeks ago
I wonder how the three clubs coorinated everything?
wouldn’t it be swell if chelsea loaned to dortmund. dortmund sold to us and we gave chelsea a potato instead.
oh well…
LOL
I was so hoping that after we signed Aubameyang and Dortmund took Batshuayi, we would simply send Chel$ki an e-mail containing only the words “Demba Ba”.
Great getting Auba but we all know where the problems are. I would have preferred us sort out the DM position and get a top quality CB first before looking bolstering the attack. Our attack lately hasn’t been great but on a scale of 1-10 our attack is still much better than our shoddy defence. Why wouldn’t you fix the most glaring problem first is beyond me (like a new GK maybe?)
Let’s sign a striker who is cup tied? The guy being pitched as the one who will make up for the goal scorers we lost, can’t play Europa. At this point the angle for CL qualification is via Europa, as it’s very questionable we make up ground for 4th in PL. I’m certain there’s a saying like “yada yada yada forest…trees”, or long term, etc etc, but damn.
Somehow Wenger doesn’t seem to be as excited as the fans..
It appears that whoever comes into Arsenal, however good they are just cannot take the team to higher heights.
This suggests for a long time that something else is seriously wrong.
Lets hope that this is sorted by the end of this season and that Arsenal can go forward with new ideas and focus.