Going back to EMIRATE isn’t a problem because that’s always been my club, but I need to be sure that this player will drop that jersey number for me before I join. Aubameyang talks about the one thing that would make him come back to the club by January.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has talked about his last days at Arsenal and the fight with Mikel Arteta that caused him to leave.
In January 2018, Aubameyang joined Arsenal for a club record fee set by Arsene Wenger. Successor Arteta had a good relationship with the Gabon captain at first when he took over as manager of the Gunners 18 months later. But the relationship finally went bad.
After Arsenal won the FA Cup in 2020, and Aubameyang played a big role in the win, the experienced striker had a rough patch. In early 2021, he was benched for a north London match because he got stuck in traffic on the way there. Then, Aubameyang’s mother got sick, which meant he had to take some time away from the club.
But Arteta got more and more angry with his star player, who had scored 92 goals in 163 games for Arsenal, when he got back from his home in Laval, France, later than planned. Because he showed up on a training day, Covid rules made it take even longer for him to get back, which is when Arteta let out his anger.
Aubameyang told Colinterview, “When I get there, the coach is done with his meeting, and he grabs me and rips me apart. He yells at me like I’m crazy and says, ‘You put a knife in my back!'” Because of what we’re going through, you can’t do that to me.
“I tell myself right then that I’m not going to answer him because it will end badly.” I didn’t go out to a party. At that time, I don’t understand why he is lecturing me in this way since he knows very well why I am leaving.
“When I get home, the doctor calls me to tell me that the coach doesn’t want me to be there tomorrow.” For the next match, I knew it would be a mess, and I thought to myself, “Damn, everyone is going to talk about it again. What is this crazy thing?” It was hard for me to understand.
Soon, the forward who made £350,000 a week was taken off as captain and told to train alone with the rest of the team. One last time, Aubameyang talked to Arteta before he insulted him by going to Barcelona before a deal was even made to try to get him to leave in January 2022.
The 34-year-old player went on, “Once again, [Arteta] explains why he is against me during this time when things were hard for the club.” That I need to set a good standard and that I’m not able to do that. Right then, I told them, “I’ll take some of the blame, but I think you can understand the real reason if you’re a little human.” You get my move. That was the end of it. I stayed and trained alone for a month while I waited for the break.
Around this time, Aubameyang started drinking to try to deal with the depression that was caused by his job going through a “difficult passage.” He admitted, “It changes a man, it was hard.” How do I leave? There’s no shame in saying, “We need to talk about it.”
He was smart to go to Catalonia because his ridiculously long-term deal in north London, which wasn’t supposed to end until 2023, was canceled 18 months early. Aubameyang scored 13 goals in 23 games for Barcelona before quickly returning to London that summer. However, his one season at Chelsea was nothing compared to his other clubs.
In the end, everything worked out for the best. Aubameyang found his best form again in a top role at Marseille, and Arsenal is now a title contender under Arteta. But their last days together were anything but peaceful. What had been a happy friendship between them turned dark.
