Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang took to social media last night to bid farewell to the Arsenal fans following confirmation that his contract at the club had been terminated by mutual consent.
While Barcelona are yet to confirm his signing, the player was pictured training with his new teammates yesterday ahead of this weekend’s match with Atletico Madrid at the Camp Nou.
Having been a firm fan favourite during his four years at the club, it’s understandable his outgoing statement is tinged with regret.
As has been well-documented, the striker spent nearly two months in exile before departing and his last appearance came as a substitute in the 2-1 defeat to Everton on 6 December.
Taking to Instagram, Auba wrote:
“Thank you for making London home for myself and my family for the past four years. We went through ups and downs together and your support meant everything to me.
“Having the chance to win trophies and the honour of being the captain of this club is something I will forever keep in my heart.
“I have always been 100% focused and committed on doing everything I can for this club which is why leaving without a real goodbye hurts – but that is football.
“I’m sad I did not get the chance to help my teammates in the last few weeks, but I have nothing but respect for this club and truly wish all my guys and the fans all the best and many successful years in the future!
“Love, Auba⚡️”
On a separate note, there are conflicting reports in the British press about the financial terms of the player’s departure. The Times claims the player walked away from Arsenal with a £7 million lump sum payout while the Guardian says Auba “waived his claim” to a payoff.
Either way, Arsenal still stand to make significant savings on the £350,000-a-week salary he was due to earn through until the summer of 2023.
Whether we’re able to replace Auba’s goals remains to be seen.
Sad to see him go. Was hoping it could’ve ended in a better way.
Still excited to see what the future holds for Arsenal this season.
Having Partey-Xhaka together again in the middle of the park for the 17 game home stretch will be absolutely massive for us if we’re to snatch 4th.
Yes, having Xhaka in the mid will be massive for us. Massive burden that is. Not signing Melo for 18 months was a good decision, but failing to bring any midfielders in was really shocking piece of business. Not shocking, as surprising, but shocking as massively incompetent. Oh well, thoughts and prayers.
We went on our good run when Xhaka got injured. It came to a crashing halt when he got back in the team. Like you say, he is a big influence on the team.
No we didn’t. We immediately dropped 4 points in the next two games by drawing with Brighton and Crystal Palace. Those games tend to be routine wins with Xhaka in the side.
I came here and said Arteta bites more than he can chew and got properly downvoted. What is it, kicking your star CF out and not being able to sign a replacement?
Do you guys know any other coach doing such a business? Isn’t it poor management? When he doesn’t like a player or the player does something wrong, he can’t make a penny of them. Still to learn a lot.
I’d say the reported £7 million pay off might soften the blow for him.
Don’t hurt me. I remember missed header against Olympiacos or his no show against Chelsea in European final. Yes he had 2 good games in the FA cup and scored 90 times against Burnley and Co. Goodbye.
Yeah, like those goals don’t count or something
How much would you have given for a goal against Burnley last week?
Didn’t come though did it! Just like the tame shots against United and the generally not looking arsed for a year
Not much , I am skinned atm. However even that he hasn’t been able to do for 18 months. In a year when we play agreeable football. Love you blogs!
Not much as I am skinned. However he hasn’t produced much in the last 18 months. I doubt he would have made a difference. The team is at last playing pleasant football. Love you blogs.
Have you seen his goal ratio?
Yeah 14 in the last 43 games
But you don’t remember that he was cup-tied for that European final…
I’ve never seen a more classless, graceless, tasteless statement. Wow
Wow. You have a nice life in a fairytale kingdom.
You’ve obviously never been on Twitter.
Send me your address, I’m coming with a baseball bat
That’s classy and tasteful.
Tough guy. Classy comment.
Stop that
Sings in *Baby don’t hurt me
Good luck Pierre, just not in any games against Arsenal 😉
Sorry things ended the way it did but thank you for all the goals especially the FA Cup win over Chelsea!
I don’t think we’ll be playing Barcenona anytime soon.
In the Europa isn’t out of the question
You forgot the Super League
So weird. Just over a year ago he was being hailed as the next Arsenal legend. Goes to show how quickly things change in Football.
Either way, we move on. Players come and go. We’ll still be here. All the best in your future endeavours and here’s to hoping we achieve something this season, not only to feel like we’ve made progress but also because Amazon’s all or nothing really is gonna be ‘nothing’.
With things changing fast, interested to see how our striking setup looks like come next season.
Any names, guesses?
Yeah…Let’s look to the future. Neketiah will get his minutes and we will see how he fits in. I hope we keep Laca. He is a senior figure, his attitude is good and he is a captain respected by the team.
Not thoroughly fussed about Nketiah. I mean, you can usually tell which youngsters actually break through (White, Ramsdale, Smith Rowe, Saka, Martinelli) and last and which ones linger until the inevitable sale (Holding, Nketiah, Chambers).
I feel like we’ll dip our toes into the transfer market this summer with a ‘big’ signing up front. Otherwise, why free up all these wage bills?
I think time will look reflect on his time at Arsenal and he’ll be a legend of sorts. That FA cup run was unreal!
Perspective…imagine an academy with several talented players itching for their opportunity. As they circle up on the pitch before training, Per walks out to them and says…I just want to let you know, in my career I have never seen an opportunity like this. You play for a top club, they sit 6th place in the best and most watched league in the world. They have 1-2 games in hand. Your academy has just provided several gifted graduates their chance and now is yours. They have the smallest first team of players in the league. If you ever wondered how… Read more »
Sad it has to end this way but best luck. now that the window is closed let’s forget about it whether we are happy or not this is our team let us give them our full support till the end off the season.
There is a wildcard we could still sign on a 4 month deal – and I would say should still sign – Diego Costa.
His strength and the way he holds the ball up brilliantly would be perfect for our attacking midfielders. He’s also a far better finisher than Laca and Eddie.
Not sure what his fitness would be like at this stage, but even off the bench when Laca gets tired after 70, Costa doesn’t miss sitters like Eddie.
I’m very conflicted on this. I detested seeing him play against us so much that I have a hard time imagining him wearing an Arsenal shirt and not being utterly grossed out. I remember how unpleasant he was to play against and how good it felt to see our lads nullifying his efforts going forward (Kos, Per, Holding) – so the prospect of cheering him on as one of our own doesn’t sit right. (I would have no qualms if for example we were talking about signing Drogba on loan back in the day, so it’s not just about the… Read more »
In theory, the issue is that it is Diego Costa or nothing.
What if he could be the difference between 4th and 5th?
We really need Champions League football!
🤷♂️
That being said, I don’t even think he is on the club’s radar.
I am pretty sure the club has already settled for ‘nothing’ (which is why we didnt make any last minute signings on Monday).
Will he be too slow to be effective?
I’d prefer to see us give a few minutes to Mika Biereth instead of gnarly has-been, Diego Costa.
Wow what a player he has been for us during all these years. I am obviously not going to remember him for the lack of goals in the last year or so. We have been spoiled by fantastic forwards over the years and he belongs right up there with the best of them considering how bad Arsenal have been for the last 4-5 years.
Farewell Auba, you will be missed. The smile, the celebrations and the connection with the fans will surely be missed. :'(
I have a lot of love for Aubameyang. I was so excited to see him in an Arsenal shirt, and for the majority of his career at Arsenal he’s been a special player. I am very sad he was forced to move on for whatever reason, but I will remember the good times and I wish him all the best for the future.
If arsenal fails to reach top 4 this season.Clearly Edu and Arteta has to leave?Even though Auba has been struggling but this makes no sense to send him away in january when we were not buying any strikers as a replacement.This deal only happened due to fall out with arteta.We have been struggling under arteta for scoring goals.
If top 4 was the target from the beginning then fair enough, but it wasn’t.
We have no idea what actually happened with Auba. I’m inclined to think poor timekeeping was a convenient cover excuse for something a little more serious. If Auba made his own position untenable at Arsenal, then I would much rather he left than hang around like a bad smell, picking up huge wages like someone else we could mention. The club tried to get money for him, but the only real suitors he would leave for was Brokearselona. Edu and Arteta were trying hard to get a replacement, but they got jerked around by a 20 year old with a… Read more »
Now Auba comes out and takes a swipe at Arteta. That’s not a good look. He fell out with the hierarchy at Dortmund, and then with Arsenal. In the last years of Wenger, people said that London Colney was more like a spa and that we needed someone who would be tougher on the players when they transgress. Now we have someone in Arteta willing to do that and people blame him when he disciplines the senior players, who should know better. It’s through having a tougher environment at Arsenal that will give the players the mental toughness that they… Read more »
Incredible player for us, will always appreciate what he gave to frankly some of the worst teams we’ve had in years (yet still managed to win more trophies than that lot 😂) and it’s a shame as we’ve begun to rebuild he can’t be part of what is hopefully brighter times. Also, as disappointing as it is to seem him go and not bring someone in I do take some small comfort from the fact we don’t have to have to spend the next few months doing the “oh we didn’t score, maybe he could use Aubua… but he won’t… Read more »
I wish him the best of luck and when you buy a 29 year old for £55m you’re getting him for what he brings to the team in terms of performance not resale value. He did that for the first 2 and a half years but unfortunately the past 18 months has seen a sharp decline. Premier league teams are just too professional, prepared and well organised to the point where even a small drop off see’s players become ineffective, we saw it with Ozil and now again with Auba. For that reason i think moving him on, even without… Read more »
While I agree with a lot of what your saying I just don’t agree that having Auba on the bench is worse than having Nketiah. Yes he has dropped off a little but he’s still a long way ahead of Nketiah and Lacazette as a goal scorer (though laca fits better with Fartetas style of play).
The bottom line is Auba walked into the Barcelona team. Would Nketiah or Laca? So what ever the right reasons were for ending the contract, it certainly wasn’t that he can’t produce or we have better options available.
Honestly, given what Aubameyang has provided in the last 18 months I feel Barcelona are signing him in reputation not current ability. I’m also not convinced Nketiah is necessarily our second choice striker, I think either Martinelli or Pepe are just as likely to start up front as him.
Personally I’m comfortable with 4 from Lacazette, Saka, Martinelli, Odegard, ESR, Pepe and Nketiah for the next 17 games.
I’d agree with most that I also wonder looking at it slightly differently did Auba engineer the move to Barca long before he rocked up at the airport 🤔 go back to the NLD last season when he was made sit it out for being a dick.
In isolation you are right. But these choices aren’t made in isolation, and we don’t know what Auba did to be frozen out and how many times he did it. So just saying Auba is a better option than Nketiah from the bench isn’t really the point.
Remember Lukaku’s interview a month or two ago where he wanted to go back to Inter? Tuchel had the right approach. He called that “noise that we don’t need” right away. It was never like “if you don’t want to be here, you have to go blah blah blah”. There was another case where Mané refused to shake hands with Klopp after a game. Klopp said if a guy who always show you respect, disrespect you a single time, why wouldn’t you forgive him? He even said that something is wrong about society these days, that everything is always blown… Read more »
I mean we literally just renewed Xhaka, Holding and would have renewed Mustafi if he hadn’t rejected us all within the last year.
But do tell me more about this ruthless, focused approach. What exactly does it focus on?
We’ve bought ourselves time with Xhaka and Holding, just like we did renewing Aubameyang. It’s just not possible to bring in a whole new team in one summer. Mustafi has left if you hadn’t noticed.
The focus is on getting rid of the bad players and replacing them with good ones, and it seems to be working.
Spot on John.
I think it’s a real shame he didn’t hit the century of goals for us. So close…. 😞
It can all be true that Auba will be missed, was a good player for us, scored lots of goals, made a big difference, had a connection with the fans, is sad not to be able to say goodbye in person, fell out of form before he left, should have been replaced, conducted himself in a way that was likely befitting of the way we expect our captain to behave and reached the point where his relationship with Arteta was ruined. Before reaching any other conclusions though, I think people need to again remember that we probably know 5-10% of… Read more »
This should say ‘unbefitting’!
What about the player who threw the captain’s armband on the ground and told the fans to fuck off?
Was that “befitting of the way we expect our captain to behave?”
If that had been forgiven, you wonder how much worse whatever Auba did must have been.
It’s worth remembering that things change with different managers and it’s them that make the decisions and they view things differently. Xhaka did what he did on a different watch. My own personal view is that there was an obvious issue with the culture at the club when Arteta took over and it needed sorting out so i’m not going to sit here and criticise Arteta for doing what he think’s best in that sense. And, as I said above, we don’t know the full facts to judge it beyond that.
That’s my issue. What you’ve written only works for personal issues between a player and a manager. A player who is in one manager’s doghouse usually gets a clean slate under a different one. But what Xhaka did wasn’t directed at the manager. He disrespected the club, he disrespected the fans. He failed utterly to live up to any minimum standard a captain should live up to. That’s not something a manager should be able to – willing to – forgive. Any talk of “culture” if Arteta is willing to ignore what Xhaka did necessarily feels hollow. If Artea can… Read more »
Indeed. No one player is bigger than the club. That privilege is just reserved for the manager instead.
this comment doesn’t make any sense
Well, he’s in charge of the team so, yeah! What do you expect us to do, run the club so that the players can do as they please, pick the team and ignore the manager?
Sad way to end, hopefully we’ll get the full story one day, maybe in the Amazon doc. All the best for him regardless.
This really makes you realize how The Athletic et al. only ever publish what the club wants them to publish.
It’s almost like being used as part of the club’s PR machine.
BTW, I’m really surpised Cedric is still with us, seeing as Ornstein reported Arsenal considered him a “good market opportunity.” Surely that means his wages are reasonable and he is in demand. He wouldn’t just reprint any obvious bullshit he’s told without comment, now would he?
The “full-story” is just going to be the club edited version of events.
I doubt it will be covered in the Amazon documentary, probably an agreement between Auba and the Club as neither party wants to come out of this negatively.
There’s definitely been a fall out, I doubt we’ll know the full story for many years, there’s been the official line from the club “disciplinary breach” and, maybe it is simply that.
Both parties agreed to terminate the contract, which is quite a sizable saving on a player that’s not played for the last two months and was contributing very little prior to being dropped.
I wish him well at Barcelona.
If this was last season I’d have been heartbroken, but you could tell he didnt care anymore
Everyone gets rose tinted specs like he ain’t been phoning in it for a year. 14 goals in 43 games. He’s been one of the worst players in an arsenal shirt all season long. The stats don’t lie
So true. Barca weren’t that bothered if they got him or not. He did all the chasing…basically discounted so much of his salary up front for them to say ok why not…if it was a straightforward transfer it would never have happened. He’s 32 and on significant decline.
Class.
It’s quite ironic when when you consider that without his goals in the FA Cup run, Arteta would most likely have been sacked by December 2020.
Oh well. The nose has been cut, the face can suck it.
At least now it’s clear that o one is bigger than the team – except for the manager, of course.
All the best Auba. Those flips will be missed and he was just short of reaching the 100 goals club.
It’s more likely than not he did receive some form of compensation for early cessation of the contract. Willian’s case was probably similar too. I don’t know what agent will ever advise a player to forgo the entire 16 month’s worth of salary that was remaining.
They both got paid, don’t worry.
Yeah, that’ll teach the rest of the team to toe the line!
even worse, player agents will take notice of our willingness to terminate contracts and advise based off that…
Thanks for your service Auba!
You make my best squad of Arsenal players in the 21st century (excl.any current players).
Basically the Invicibles XI + twelve others 😅
Goalkeepers = Seaman, Lehmann and Sczezny
Defenders = Lauren, Dixon, Adams, Campbell, Toure, Keown, Cole, Monreal
Mids = Vieira, Gilberto Silva, Ljungberg, Pires, Cazorla, Ozil, Ramsey, Fabregas
Attackers = Henry, Bergkamp, Alexis, Aubameyang
Harsh on Sagna and Koscielny
What about xhaka? 😉😂🤣
No it isn’t, Koscielny was crap
I really loved watching him play when he was motivated, unfortunately, it didn’t seem like there was much of that this season. Not sure if that’s Arteta’s fault or if the player just wasn’t up for the fight with a team like Arsenal.
If one looks back with an honest eye? Auba has been mostly great.
Wish him luck in Barca. The pressure to produce in that environment is going to go up a few notches.
(Martinelli in the middle for me.)
Might be also giving Pepe a go there? Unfortunately I don’t think Arteta likes him and he’ll be gone in the summer!!!
Really sad to see him go, and under such a cloud. I have no idea how it all disintegrated so rapidly. I always felt he had a lot more goals in him, but that our system / style of play stood in the way. I wonder what his goal tally would have been if he was in our 2008 team, with Cesc threading throughballs and Auba making runs in behind. Sigh.
Aubame- who?
Joking aside, his partnership with Laca was one of the few elements that kept me interested for a long while.
Btw, look at the club’s best goals the last 5 years and notice how often Laca contributes. If he can stay fit, he should be good enough in the right system. Sure, it’s time MA came up with a plan b against packed defences, but some people seem to forget Laca was a proven Champion’s League level player with Lyon…
Anyway, wishing Auba good health and (moderate) success with Barcelona!
We’ll say a proper goodbye when we meet Barca in the Europa League next season.
So what did he really do? I don’t think it was lateness.
I think we can infer that Ozil and Aubameyang were most likely part of the “good ebening” crew, while Xhaka was most definitely not.
Some people just hate being micromanaged and need head space to express themselves. Auba and Ozil for sure but hopefully not Saliba.
As sad as it is to see a former captain and generally likeable player leave it was about the right time for both parties that he moved on. He’s looked haunted for the last year and a half. He’s still had a few really good games in that time but it’s like he lost his spark and his fight. I hope he rediscovers some form at Barcelona, as long as we’re not looking on with regret. I want to see more of Pepè, and Martinelli up front. I just hope we can hit form again because we looked great before… Read more »
Auba’s scoring record during two of the worst seasons in the club’s history is seriously impressive. If he played for Liverpool, with their service and his pace, I honestly believe he’d score more than Salah.
The issue nobody is talking about it when betrayal. Why would any top player join us, if Arteta can turn on him in a second?
In business you don’t deal with the competitors or your clients bc once you have the reputation of betraying your partners for money, you lose everyone’s trust and nobody works with you.
Arteta may have managed to create that dynamic here in two years. Which coupled with our ownership issues, could be actually disastrous.