Yesterday, we carried quotes from Granit Xhaka who fears the damage that would be done if Arsenal lost Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at the end of the season.
No teammate has come close to matching the 30-year-old’s goal-getting since he signed from Borussia Dortmund in January 2018, however, as he edges closer to the final year of his contract, the club, who said this time last year that they won’t let players run down deals, have to decide whether to stick or twist.
Today, Paris Saint Germain have emerged as a possible suitor. Le 10 Sport, who in the past have been hit and miss with their transfer speculation, claim ‘exclusively’ the Qatar-owned Ligue 1 giants are leaning towards the Gabonese rather than taking up their option to sign on-loan striker Mauro Icardi.
They claim a fee between €40-50 million is viewed as good value by the Parisians, which seems like a bold statement given his age and the fact nobody quite knows how the transfer market will react to the coronavirus situation. That said, when you’ve spent the best part of €400 million on Neymar and Mbappe, perhaps it does look like chump change.
If a €50 million offer is presented to Edu and Raul, you’d imagine they’ll think very hard about a sale even if replacing Auba’s goals looks daunting. For what it’s worth, there are also rumours floating that Alex Lacazette, who has two years left on his deal, could be sold if the right offer is tabled.
In separate news, Auba has been using the lockdown to hone his video game skills. According to ESPN, he’s set to take part in a virtual Formula One grand prix around Monaco’s street circuit on Sunday.
McLaren’s Lando Norris has been sharing a few tips with Auba ahead of the duo lining up alongside each other in the latest of a series of races played out on the official F1 2019 video game.
40-50 Million quid sounds like a good deal – even if I would hate for Auba to leave us.
Tough call. The club is making a significant loss so the money would be welcome. But.. it’s Auba! I guess it depends on who might come in. But again… it’s Auba and, as Blogs wrote, no-one comes close to his goal tally atm.
I’d hate to make that call!
We’d all hate to make that call, but in keeping with the trend of our best players wanting to leave over the last several years, I doubt Auba feels the same way about us. I mean if he loved the club then he would have signed the contract already.. We weren’t offering him peanuts surely. As much as we love him, I’m afraid it’s just a one sided love affair and soon enough we’ll have to accept an offer for him. In the upcoming season let’s blood Martinelli. Kid’s not half bad. And someone please take Laca’s balloons and throw… Read more »
Due to how much money we’re losing through no ticket sales in 2020-21, I’m not convinced that we would purchase a replacement (unless by a miracle we qualify for the Champions League).
Otherwise I think Arteta would just have to work with Lacazette, Martinelli, and Nketiah as his 3 striker options.
It’s not just the transfer fees, losing Aubameyang + Lacazette + Mkhitaryan would clear around £550,000 p/w, if we could get £60-£70 million for those 3 in this market? We should go for it. With the emergence of Nketiah, Saka, Nelson and Martinelli, those three can be replaced with just one experienced number 9. Aubameyang is 31 this summer, at some point he’s going to dip physically, making a mega 3 year deal risky. Look at Ozil, earning too much, and far too comfortable in his surroundings to move on, we couldn’t give him away, let alone recuperate any type… Read more »
Why would everton sell new rich owners
It is a tough one, but the management were clear that no players would enter the final year on their contract again. So it is a test of their credibility as much as anything. But obviously from a football perspective, losing our best player would be a disaster.
At some point in the past it was Anelka or Overmars, or even Thierry. Someone came in and did the job. If Auba doesn’t want a new deal, I say we sell and get on with it.
£50M for Auba, sad to say it…but that’s great money for a 30yr old, need to focus on the future, Saka I know not a goal scorer but he must be convinced to stay.
Arteta has clearly said that he wants players committed to the cause. I can see both Lacazette and Auba going, giving Arteta funds to buy a top striker of his own choice, in this new market, that would be serious funds to secure a top goal scorer.
It’s not only about his goals (even if I think most of the time we forget about the fact that if a top scorer leaves his substitute will play much more and consequently: score more). If he leaves and it lessen our chances for CL football, then we will end up where we started. Income in one hand and loss in the other.
The big issue is we can’t continue to allow top players to leave for nothing as our squad has a lot of needs and we can’t afford to simply write off 50m in fees every year (Sanchez 2 years ago, Ramsey last year, Auba this year). Auba leaving will allow Saka to move forward & while Auba would be a big loss, it might allow us to rebuild enough in a very depressed market that we end off in better shape. Look at Liverpool selling Coutinho as a possible blueprint.
It’s the best worst case scenario. If Auba doesn’t sign, I’ll take that 40 mil euro, rebuild the base of our squad i.e. midfield and defence, go with the youngsters upfront. That’s my FM plan though hahah
He’s always said he wants Madrid, a promise to his grandfather, so if they come in he’ll go, and not many of us would begrudge him that at his age. He’s also a competitve guy and I don’t he’ll want to play in a farmers league. He does love arsenal, but we need to show him we can compete.
Aside from Salah, no one has been more prolific in the PL in the past 2 years, and Auba has played on a pretty poor team over that time. If we have ambitions to be better now, we should re-sign him as he shows no signs of slowing down. Goals, goals, goals, and quite a character in the team. If our ambitions to be better are more future-oriented and our financial concerns come first as a club, then we will likely have to sell him. The reality is this: we will not get 1/2 of what Auba is worth in… Read more »
In ideal world that’s what we’d do but it looks like Auba has other ideas!
I’ve loved having him at Arsenal but he’s 31 in three weeks with a contract approaching its end and other clubs are knocking on the door. Let him go for a fair sum and invest it in new players.
Who’d you replace him with?
I think we need to replace him with younger talent. We have some great young players. The money should be used to bolster with players that help us rebuild for the future. I believe in Arteta and think he should be given time. The funds from selling Auba would help us do that.
Justsell ffs. Use the money for the future aka tieing our best youngsters down for 4/5 seasons and sorting out our dead midfield.
*tying
Before Coutinho left Liverpool, everybody was saying it’d be a disaster for this club to lose him. He left and Liverpool are stronger than ever… The transfer is now one of the biggest flops in football History for Barca and the player.
Liverpool spent the money wisely, Van Dijk I was gutted when Arsenal didn’t but him when he moved from Celtic.
Preference would be to keep him and move him back to CF but failing that, selling to a club outside England would be the least worst option. Strangely, selling Aubameyang kind of strengthens the case for selling Lacazette as well. Between Saka, Martinelli, Pepe and Nelson we look pretty strong on the wings even without Aubameyang. What we would really need is a top CF and selling Lacazette, third choice under Arteta, could help fund one.
What top CF would you go for?
Good question! Really not sure but seeing as most of our attacking players are very young anyway, I’d prefer we go for an experienced forward. I’m a big fan of Jiminez at Wolves, not sure how much he’d cost though.
Jiminez, a good choice, but my guess is Wolves would want a big price, what happened to the times when the prospect for playing for The Arsenal was a big pull?
i no it’s a big gamble, but with Arteta at the realms I do wonder if Nketiah & Martinelli are the real deal, I’d love them to both succeed and play for the Gunners for the next 10 years, don’t forget we’ve got Nelson/Saka and Pepe on the wings, with Smith-Rowe polling the strings, our youngsters really excite me.
They were talking about man utd offering 90 million for Jimenez the other day !
Ok that’sa no no for us then?
Odsonne Édouard.
Bad boy at Celtic.
Next big thing….
Sounds interesting, I’m going to keep an eye on this dude, must admit I don’t know anything about your choice.
Horrible to think we will have to play without him in some ways, one thing for me is that he has had a quite a few games where he hasn’t played well but has scored goals nonetheless, something we know every top striker has over a good but lesser striker. Also we can’t forget sometimes a team can become increasingly reliant on a player, and the team plays into the hands of that player, when you take the player out other players have the chance to step up and the team dynamics and tactics can change very positively for the… Read more »
My preference would be to keep him but let’s be clear, if we can get that kind of money now for a 30 year old we should bite their hands off. We ain’t winning (or qualifying) for anything with Auba so we might as well take the hit and look to the future with the great young players we have.
Auba is a top quality goalscorer, but why would PSG do that ? They already have Mbappe if they want a fast striker. If not, they have Icardi and Cavani.
Icardi is on loan and going back to Italy unless they buy him, and Cavani’s contract expires this summer and he is leaving on a bosman.
I think Cavani would be an interesting choice, good experience to show the way for Nketiah & Martinelli.
How has he done this season?
I wasn’t actually talking for players for us, I was saying why PSG might want Aubameyang as they are losing 2 strikers. But in that you asked in 14 appearances he has 4 goals and 2 assists so is on the decline, and he is 33 years old. Perhaps if we have no cash to spend and management want a 12 month solution it could be possible 🙂
Give them Mustafi and chuck in a free Katy Perry album. Job done.