Arsenal forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who broke the club’s transfer fee record when he moved over from Borussia Dortmund in the January transfer window, has made some refreshingly candid remarks about the club.
After Unai Emery was officially introduced as the new manager at Arsenal yesterday, Aubameyang admits that the club has stagnated in recent years. Arsene Wenger led the club to a whole lot of silverware during his 22 years in charge of the club, but in his final years on the job the Gunners degraded from title contenders to just top four contenders to only Europa League qualifiers the past two years.
Now a new era begins under Emery and Aubameyang looks forward to getting it started.
“It’s a bit of a mixed feeling. On one hand, for the fans, it’s odd that the boss is going, but it’s a new start, the former BVB man told RMC.
“To speak the truth, over the last few seasons the team has stagnated a little bit, but everyone is excited to see what can happen from next season.”
Emery, who was introduced to the media yesterday, and thus outlined his vision for the club, heads to north London having just won a domestic treble for Paris Saint-Germain. Aubameyang explained what his preferred role would be in his new coach’s system, but also said that he will play wherever his manager expects him to.
“My preference, as everyone knows, is to play down the middle. What I hope can happen is we can play with two attackers, that would be the best, but if the new coach asks me to play wide, that’s no problem. He’s [Emery] a really good coach.
“In Paris, it’s never very easy,” the 28-year-old attacking player added.
“There’s a huge amount of pressure. I know he did really good work with Sevilla and with PSG too.”
“We already have a quality squad, but if we maybe had another two players that would be good. But everyone needs to get into their heads that we have to work hard to rival the top teams.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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