Chelsea striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has clarified his comments about Mikel Arteta, insisting he wishes his former club well.
Speaking in an interview that surfaced on Sunday, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang criticised Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta.
“To manage big characters and big players, he can’t deal with it,” Aubameyang said. “He needs some young players who don’t say anything, they just listen.”
The comments obviously didn’t go down well with the Arsenal fans, and they seemed particularly ill-timed and incendiary with the Gunners sitting at the top of the Premier League and Aubameyang playing for one of their London rivals.
Aubameyang took to Twitter to clarify the situation, explaining that the interview was actually recorded just after he joined Barcelona, admitting he was still feeling bitter at that stage.
“Aware there is a video out that was recorded just after I arrived at Barca,” Aubameyang said.
“At the time I still had a lot of bad feelings in me – Arsenal are doing great things this season and I wish all my old guys well, just not on November 6!”
November 6th is obviously when Arsenal travel to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea, arguably the Gunners’ biggest remaining game before the World Cup break.
There will certainly be other tests, and the upcoming week of fixtures away in Norway on Thursday and then at Leeds on Sunday looks particularly tricky to manage.
But with games against Manchester United, Spurs, and Liverpool behind them, the Chelsea game is the last big-six fixture before many of Arsenal’s players leave for Qatar.
Though the context of Aubameyang’s comments does help a little, as does his admission that the quotes were driven by his negative feelings at the time, Arsenal fans are still within their rights to feel disappointed.
These weren’t comments filmed without Aubameyang’s knowledge or consent, he was conducting an interview.
Whatever his feelings behind the scenes, it was up to him to be professional about it on camera.
In the end, it’s just another situation that seemingly proves Arteta right to let the player go.