Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been speaking about Mikel Arteta’s influence on the team and club behind the scenes and his words show that Arteta is delivering what he promised them all when he first arrived.
“Since he came in he has brought an atmosphere that everyone feels like they are at home – so everyone has to do the homework as well!” Aubameyang told Arsenal.com this week.
“The mentality around the club is going very, very well and everyone is going in the same way, which is very important. Everyone has the same objective, the goal is to bring the club back where it belongs.”
Aubameyang has scored 17 goals, with 3 assists in 26 games under Arteta. He’s scored four goals at Wembley and won more trophies than Harry Kane. He scored 17 in his last 26 too, but he gets to take a lot more penalties than the Arsenal captain.
In short, Auba has risen to the challenge Arteta laid at his feet when he first arrived, telling our captain, both privately and publicly, to show just how much he wanted it.
Although the payrise certainly didn’t hurt, you do have to commend Aubameyang for deciding to stay at Arsenal and for giving Arteta a chance in the first place.
When the Spaniard was first appointed, more ego-fuelled stars would have had a problem taking orders from a player who, let’s face it, won little. Auba is supposed to be one of those players but he’s really not. When he says to Arsenal.com “I’m a guy who is really shy,” he means it. You can see that when he talks.
When Arteta was first given the job there was talk that Aubameyang’s brother was not at all impressed with the appointment. Aubameyang himself was ready to give the former midfielder a chance.
“He’s started with the basics and we’re working a lot tactically,” Aubameyang said after Arteta’s first match in charge. “He has great ideas, so we’ll try to follow him by working hard. He’s a good man. He was a player like us so there’s a good feeling in the dressing room.
“Everybody was working hard. We had a good attitude and we were trying to play how he wants to play, how we want to play. We are on a good way. Hopefully, we can improve. We know the next games are quite hard but we are confident.”
It looks like Aubameyang isn’t the only one demonstrating ‘just how much he wants it’. Mikel Arteta is too.