Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has gone from Arsenal outcast to Barcelona star. Aubameyang scored a brace in Barcelona’s 4-0 El Clasico victory over Real Madrid.
The forward’s form has even taken some of the sting out of signing. Haaland, Erling
The Catalan giants were initially interested in Alvaro Morata during the January transfer window.
Few players have ever gone from being the most difficult problem at one club to being the most effective solution at another in such a short period of time.
Pierre Emerick Aubameyang’s transformation from Arsenal’s outcast to Barcelona’s undisputed first-choice center-forward has helped transform both the club’s season and his own standing among Europe’s top strikers.
Aubameyang scored the first and final goals in Barcelona’s 4-0 win over Real Madrid on Sunday night at the Santiago Bernabeu.
He could easily have scored a hat-trick, but his tally for his new club is now eight goals in 11 games.
He was right in the middle of the celebrations after the clasico, with one arm around Eric Garcia and another around one of the club’s kit-men, as the Barcelona players bounced up and down in the dressing room, singing: ‘Being at Barca is the best there is.’
To say he has blended in and adapted to life in a different league would be an understatement.
He’s even taken the sting out of the board’s need to throw caution to the wind and sign Erling.
It’s a far cry from a few months ago, when a lack of form, discipline, and commitment cost him the captaincy at Arsenal.
‘We had a disciplinary problem.’ We’ve made our decision. ‘He’s on the bench,’ Mikel Arteta said ahead of the north London derby last year.
Images of the player’s £2 million chrome-wrapped LaFerrari stuck in London traffic suggested that tardiness was the issue, and it wasn’t the only time he set a bad example.
Last December, the club waived a ban on players traveling abroad to allow him to visit his ailing mother in France on the condition that he return the same day so that he could train the next morning.
He violated that particular requirement, returning the next day in time for training but not in the timeframe requested by the club, and with apparent violations of covid protocol as well.
He was left out of the squad for the next game, and after meetings with manager Mikel Areta and technical director Edu, he was informed that he would lose his captaincy.
When Arsenal confirmed the decision in a statement, the phrase ‘following his latest disciplinary breach’ was damning, implying that he was a loose cannon whose Arsenal career was only going in one direction – out the door.
The fact that the exit would lead to Barcelona surprised everyone. The club felt it had no choice but to support Arteta’s efforts to impose some non-negotiable rules on the squad, even if it meant setting an example with a player with whom he had previously enjoyed a good relationship.
Arteta would not have expected him to score for fun in Spain as soon as he left.
Meanwhile, Barcelona had no plans to sign him. They had been monitoring his situation for some time, but the priority going into the transfer window was Spain forward Alvaro Morata.
When Atletico Madrid, who still own the Juventus loanee, rejected the idea of strengthening a La Liga rival, the Aubameyang deal was resurrected.
The player himself was taken aback by his good fortune. He signed with Barcelona just before midnight on deadline day, after terminating his contract with Arsenal.
Because he was a free agent, they were able to register him with the league on February 2.
And they were able to pay him because he had taken a significant pay cut – for at least this season, he will earn one-third of the £300,000 he was earning at Arsenal.
That financial sacrifice laid the groundwork for him to succeed in Barcelona. There was a lot of goodwill involved in making it work.
And there were assurances from Arteta to Xavi, via third parties, that for all that he had fallen short of what was required to be a good Arsenal captain, he was a good person.
Guim Laporta also provided some excellent references. The president’s son had met Aubameyang through a football development project in Gabon.
In larger football circles, it was recognized that Aubameyang’s Ferrari wasn’t always in the right place ten minutes before training started, but his heart was.
Thomas Tuchel previously admitted that he enjoyed coaching Aubameyang at Dortmund, despite the fact that he had to tell him to be on the training pitch at 10.45 a.m. if the session started at 11 a.m. to accommodate his apparently incurable tardiness.
His success at Barcelona has been aided by an old Dortmund connection. Ousmane Dembele was a good friend and on the same wavelength on the pitch when the two played together in the Bundesliga.
They’ve been playing together as if they’ve never been apart.
On Sunday night, Aubameyang headed past Thibaut Courtois from Dembele’s cross.
Aubameyang has also begun attempting to persuade Dembele to sign a new contract so that their partnership can continue into the next season.
Aubameyang’s position on the field has also aided him. The club made it clear to him that they wanted him as a centre-forward from the moment they approached him about joining.
He has spent brief spells in a couple of games so far playing wide left while Ferran Torres occupied the central channel, but for the most part he has played as a nine.
That is where Xavi wants him, and that is where he will play next season if Barcelona does not sign Erling Haaland.
With that willingness to use him where he believes he is most effective; an acceptance that, while he may not be captain material, he will more than carry his weight on the pitch; and that chemistry with Dembele, the 32-year-old has been transformed.
It remains to be seen how long it will last, but Barcelona are overjoyed that the risk they took is paying off – when he arrived, they were drifting, unable to take their chances; now, they have a prolific finisher, they are Europa League favourites, and they are on course to finish second in La Liga behind a Madrid side they have just thrashed 4-0.
