Fabrizio Romano has offered exclusive insight into what went wrong between Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Mikel Arteta at Arsenal before the Gabon striker’s move to Barcelona in January.
Aubameyang had been a star player for Arsenal for a number of years, but it’s clear things ended on a sour note between him and Arteta, with the Spanish tactician stripping him of the captaincy and leaving him out of the team towards the end of his time at the Emirates Stadium.
Aubameyang has since revived his career with some fine form at Barcelona before returning to London with a transfer to Chelsea this summer.
Still, old video footage has emerged online showing the 33-year-old criticising Arteta, saying that the Gunners boss can’t handle big personalities in the dressing room.
Aubameyang has addressed the video on Twitter, admitting that he left Arsenal with bad feelings, though he now wished his old club well.
Writing about this issue in his CaughtOffside column on Substack, Romano said: “I think it’s normal to see these kinds of problems between top players and top managers when things are not working.
“The relationship was broken in January last season but there’s respect between Arteta and Auba. And I’m told Auba has been an excellent professional with both Chelsea and Barca until now, there have never been any problems there.”
Arsenal fans will surely be disappointed that things couldn’t work out between Aubameyang and Arteta, as their former striker was a world class performer for them at his peak, and could likely still have contributed something to this team.
It will be easier for Gooners to cope, however, as they’ve done so well this season with the signing of Gabriel Jesus up front, with the Brazil international more than doing his bit to replace Aubameyang’s quality up front since his move from Manchester City.