Arsenal captain Aubameyang leaves the club by mutual consent and joins Barcelona as a free agent

This Wednesday, following the presentation of Adama Traore, Barcelona officially announced the transfer of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The presentation will take place this Thursday.

Later on Tuesday evening, Aubameyang posted a goodbye message on social media: 

“To the Arsenal fans, thank you for making London home for myself and my family for the past four years. We went through ups and downs together and your support meant everything to me. Having the chance to win trophies and the honour of being the captain of this club is something I will forever keep in my heart. I have always been 100 per cent focused and committed on doing everything I can for this club which is why leaving without a real goodbye hurts – but that is football.

“I’m sad I did not get the chance to help my team-mates in the last few weeks, but I have nothing but respect for this club and truly wish all my guys and the fans all the best and many successful years in the future! Love, Auba.”

Details of the move: free agent, contract for 3.5 years with an initial wage of ridiculous €5,000 per week (423024 INR) until the end of the season (as insiders say), but with a sharp increase from July 1. Such a low amount should not be surprising, since Dembele’s transfer was failed, and the team can barely fit within the salary cap set by La Liga.

There is also an option that after 1.5 years, which is the summer of 2023, which gives the choice to terminate the contract by any side. This is beneficial for both parties – the Catalans have protected themselves from the repetition of situations with contracts like Samuel Umtiti or Ousmane Dembele when a player refuses to leave the team and becomes an expensive ‘burden’, and the Gabonese himself can safely leave Catalonia at the end of next season if he does not like something in the team, or if will get some generous offers from Qatar or North America. More recently, the striker said he was not ready to finish with European football, but in fact, he may change his mind in a year or two.

By the way, Barcelona have set a release clause of €100 million as well. Why not, if, for example, Martin Braithwaite has a clause of €300 million. Insiders also say that the contract may be one-way terminated if Aubameyang systematically violates discipline, as it was with him at Arsenal (which mainly was the reason of his suspension from the main team).

Unfortunately, we know less about the purely football motivation for this move than we would like to. 

In general, the logic is clear: Barça had the opportunity not even to sign, but to ‘pick’ up a star striker (no transfer fee and the first six months will play for the legal minimum wage) – the temptation was too big. The terms of the deal implicitly hint at a desperate desire to move to the Barca (by the way, Aubameyang is a Madrid fan) and a high level of motivation. A motivated Aubameyang could be a superstar. 

But let’s not forget that the Gabon player is no longer young and has lost the very qualities that allowed him to produce a top-performance, against a background of reduced speed and inability to play short he also has a problem with his execution – how to insert such a player, it is a big task for the head coach.

What’s interesting is that years ago, while coaching Al-Saad, Xavi expressed the opinion that Auba is not suited to Barça’s system:

“Mane and Aubameyang will kill you in a run and pace, but Barcelona need players who are good at moving short distances. You can remember that Eto’o has adapted perfectly to the Catalan game, and now Luis Suárez as well. Neymar? Football-wise, he’s one of the top three or five in the world. I hope he comes back to Barça.”

Perhaps the logic ‘We’ll take him, he’s too good, but we’ll figure out how to use him later’ was used. Blaugrana’s need for a forward also played in favor of the Gabonese. Alas, there was no consistency in the search for a striker. It is only obvious that Xavi is not satisfied with the option of Memphis Depay as a false nine, and the option of pure striker Luuk De Jong, and what should be the ideal striker in the coach’s understanding is still unclear. Almost certainly it will have to be molded out of Aubameyang – we’ll see.

“I’m very proud, especially because my family is Spanish from my mother’s side,”

he said.

“I’m really proud and happy to be here. My main goal is to help the team and give everything I can to bring the team back into the Champions League and stuff like that. I’m just happy to be here and I will try to give everything. It’s amazing to have him (Xavi) as a coach, he’s been a fantastic player as everyone knows and I’m sure as a coach he will bring us something that we will learn.”

Said the Gabonese in his first interview.

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