Was Arteta right to let Aubameyang leave for Barcelona?

Stefan Bienkowski

• 3 Feb 2022 11:20 CST
• 7 min read

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has solely blamed Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta for his decision to leave the club and join Barcelona in the January transfer window.

In a press conference to unveil him as a new signing for the Spanish giants, the Gabon international was asked about his decision to leave Arsenal. And he didn’t hold back in his anger around the club’s current manager.

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“My last few months at Arsenal were complicated, that’s football sometimes,” said Aubameyang.

“For my part, I never wanted to do anything wrong. My problem was only with Arteta. I can’t say much more, I wasn’t happy.

“It was just him and he made that decision. He wasn’t happy, I can’t tell you more. He wasn’t very happy, I was very calm.

“Those were difficult months. This is football. I’ve never wanted to do anything wrong, it’s the past and I want to think about the present.”

Such revelations may come as no surprise to Arsenal fans, who noted Arteta’s reluctance to play the striker and often spoke about Aubemeyang’s off-the-field issues.

But was the Arsenal manager right to push Aubameyang out the door in the January window or was it a hasty move?

Was now the right time to dump Aubameyang?

While fans may have been rather annoyed at the club letting a star striker leave during a pivotal moment in the season, Aubameyang’s stats do suggest that he’s some way off the player he once was for the club.

For example, in his debut season for the club, Aubameyang bagged an average of 0.68 goals and 0.16 assists per 90 minutes in the Premier League, amounting to a total of 0.84 goals and assists per 90. Which was unquestionably an excellent return for the Arsenal forward.

However, since then that number has quickly and rather consistently declined season on season. In the 2019/20 campaign his average per 90 dropped to 0.69. Then, in the campaign after that it fell to just 0.43 goals and assists per 90.

And in this current campaign he was averaging just 0.4 per 90 before he ultimately drew a line under his Arsenal career and made the move to Barcelona.

That means, in no uncertain terms, that Aubameyang’s ability to score or create goals for Arsenal in the Premier League had a 52% drop over the course of just three and a half seasons. Which was simply no longer good enough to guarantee him a starting role in Arteta’s squad. And perhaps why the Spanish manager felt it was time to pull the plug on his time at Arsenal.