Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is about to leave Arsenal in the summer and according to Jeremie Aliadiere, the Gunners management is to blame for this whole mess.
The forward has a year left on his current deal at the club and right now a number of big European sides are interested in signing him during the summer. And while Arteta will love to sell him off a massive transfer fee but the Arsenal boss just cannot afford that thanks to the laziness of his board.
“They’ve got to sell him, 100 per cent,” Aliadiere told Goal. “Arsenal can’t keep losing players on a free. To be honest, I still can’t believe we’ve again got a top player, our captain, going into the summer only having one year left on his contract.
“For me, it has to be sorted when he gets to two years. Last summer he should have signed a deal or been sold. Because when you get down to one year left, in a player’s mind there is a difference.
“If I was Aubameyang and I knew I only had one year left, I would sacrifice one year of my career to go on a free and get paid a ridiculous amount of money and have all the clubs in the world chasing me. Who wouldn’t?”
“That’s why I just think it’s wrong management yet again. It should be sorted at two years. You should not let a player end up with a year left on his contract, especially a player like Aubameyang. It’s not right.
“I just think players are playing on it, they keep letting negotiations drag on and the next thing you know, he’s just got one year left.
“And now, how much are we going to sell him for with one year left? Arsenal are in the worst position you can imagine again because you’ve got a top-quality player who assures you of 20-25 Premier League goals a season who is one year away from leaving on a free.
“Or, he gets sold to Barcelona or Real Madrid and for what? How much can you expect for him now? Nothing compared to what if you’d sold him last summer. They could have asked for £100 million.”
Are the Arsenal board at fault for this one?
If this was the first major gaffe from the Arsenal management, we would have been ready to hand them the benefit of the doubt.
But over the past couple of years, the Gunners hierarchy have been making one blunder after another, in terms of dealing with players and their contracts.
From handing Mesut Ozil a massive pay-rise to letting Aaron Ramsey leaving as a free agent to Juventus, Arsenal have made all sorts of wrong judgments. And we might as well add the Aubameyang transfer saga to that dreaded list.
It’s clear Mikel Arteta is not ready to part ways with the Gabon international but given the current financial scenario, Arsenal just cannot afford to let their most prized asset leave for free next year.
And at the same time, no club will be ready to pay a gigantic transfer fee for the forward since he only has a year left on his current deal at the Emirates.
