Tir Na Nog
Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes
Country: Ireland
Tbf I'd agree with this if one of the chances he missed wasn't in a CL final.
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Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: Black Panther
- Thread starter Aevi
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Country: Ireland
Tbf I'd agree with this if one of the chances he missed wasn't in a CL final.
tap-in
Nothing Wrong With Me
Valid point but I'm sure he scored some that we didn't expect him too, so I for one forgive him
Mo Britain
Doom Monger
I really don't understand how there can be an argument about his worth when he is top goal-scorer in the premier league in a season where, so far, we have shown some advances but are not exactly bossing many of our games.
HBL
Established Member
Just seen on twitter they have played 1099 minutes together since January (shudders) and they have 21 goals and 11 assists between them in that time.
Aussie_gunner123
Established Member
Country: Australia
I am so pleased we have this guy, himself & Laca have brought so much positive personality to the club, I just feel there is a positive vibe around the club & players again, the goal celebrations among alot of the players is great especially himself & Laca haha. I liked Iwobi & Özil's yesterday aswell after his 90th minute winner. I think he definately needs a break atm though, if we lose him due to injury we'll be on the slide big time.
James Bond
Moderation Consultant
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: The gloss-finished striker we hardly notice
Barney Ronay
The Arsenal striker has a claim to be the most thrillingly old-fashioned centre-forward in the Premier League
Ok, but apart from that. Apart from scoring more goals in the last three and a half seasons than anyone else we have seen in England. Apart from being the Premier League top scorer in a new-build team still trying to work out their rhythm and shape. And apart from doing all this with a thrillingly controlled range of movement, that easy grace that scarcely leaves a dent in the dew. Apart from all that. What has Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang actually done to commend himself as the deadliest, most thrillingly old-school centre-forward in the Premier League?
It is normal to have reservations about Aubameyang. People often do. As Arsenal have begun to stutter a little, with Saturday’s trip to Anfield looking like a chance to measure the distance this team still has left to run, there will be a temptation to question everything.
Perhaps Aubameyang could have put away an even greater percentage of his chances. Perhaps he could mask the clanks and clunks of the new era a little more effectively, pulling out that fun, goofy grin more often, the look of a man who celebrates every single goal he scores as though this is the greatest, most unexpected thing that has ever happened to him, as though he simply had no idea such things were even possible.
Either way Aubameyang is likely to enter the new year as the league’s top scorer. And as ever there is a vague sense of surprise about this. It isn’t hard to see why he confuses people. Football is a crowded, structurally baroque thing, a mess of noise and duelling metrics, tangled headphone chords, yellowing cheese board remnants, triple-screening evenings on the sofa arguing about expected goals with a parody Jeremy Corbyn Twitter account.
It is a minimalism that can be both devastating and amusingly peripheral
In the middle of which there is a clarity to watching a player like Aubameyang. His outline is distinct. At a time of postmodern positional fudge, Aubameyang remains a pure cutting edge. No one in any major European league has more goals from fewer shots. No player has made fewer interceptions and scored more goals.
It is a minimalism that can be both devastating and amusingly peripheral. Against Chelsea in August Aubameyang played for 90 minutes and touched the ball 18 times. Three months later in the win against Sp**s he produced the most ruthlessly destructive individual performance of the season, with 44 touches, two goals, an assist, five tackles, nothing wasted, nothing thrown away.
He even won two headers, this from a man who still grins manically when he successfully heads the ball, and who is even now – whisper it – on a run of three whole games without committing a foul, being flagged offside or making a tackle.
This is nothing new. There is some YouTube footage out there of Aubameyang’s first goal against an English team in the colours of Milan at the one-off World Youth Championships in Malaysia in 2007. Even this is pure one-touch killer, a run off the back of the Arsenal defence and a dreamy one-touch no-look instep volley yawned over the keeper with a flex of the big toe, not breaking stride, just running off to laugh about how good he is.
Milan still didn’t sign him. To date the only teams to have spent any money on this wonderfully smooth goalscoring machine are St Étienne, Arsenal and Borussia Dortmund, who got rid of him in part because their own measures suggested he was doing less, moving less, carrying out the team plan to a less exacting degree.
This is a part of the Aubameyang paradox. He is both a modern footballing athlete and a throwback to pre-Premier League times. In the age of 4-4-2 there were two main types of centre forward. First the classical Big Man, present now most obviously in the shape of Andy Carroll, who in his better moments can still replicate the destructive effects of hurling an aggressively confused wild yak from a second floor balcony into a Christmas market shopping street. And secondly the fast, smooth, Lineker/Aubameyang type, who made good runs and finished well and played right at the front of the team.
A cutting edge this sharp is still supremely effective. Aubameyang has nine Premier League away goals in 2018. His goals in tight games have been responsible for 12 league points so far this season. Plenty of Arsenal fans prefer the more aggressively involved Alexandre Lacazette. Others have twigged that Mesut Özil, divine imperial princeling of the late Wenger years, cannot really play in the same team. One minimalist is fine. Two looks like decadence.
Plus, the game has not changed that much. Perhaps the main thing that has gone wrong with Manchester City in the last month is just that their own killer up front has been injured or out of form. For all the talk of opponents wising up to the high press, of the loss of Fernandinho’s rapid transitions, these narratives are often engineered out of some fairly arbitrary details, games won or lost by fine margins. Stick Aubameyang in that City team for the last four games and they would probably end up winning all of them, albeit in a way that reflects little additional glory on the evolution of third-season Pep-ball.
That slightly aloof style does not really fit any obvious philosophy or pattern of play. But it is still foolish to overlook the most obvious route to goal, or the power of the minimalist, who might not be the best or the most complete, but who has a particular kind of beauty in his cold clear lines.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/dec/28/pierre-emerick-aubamayeng
nick gould
Well-Known Member
He misses a partner. He just can not play as a lone striker surrounded by midfielders. Maybe this can work if there are wing forwards on the pitch.
Gooner_girl14
Active Member
Got no service today, he definitely doesn't look like he can play as a lone striker.
DasBootist
Well-Known Member
Seems so basic in theory. Play your two top class forwards together!
ksarp
Active Member
He can’t, but somehow Emery belives he can.
Furious
Emery Gone, Telly Back On
But both of them are pathetic outside the box, that's the main problem. Makes it very hard to progress into the opposition's box. Assuming you want both up top.
I would use Auba in the Theo role, Laca up front, Iwobi on the left, and Özil at no. 10. This would be our best attack imo, haven't tried it at all this season. Absolute travesty that Iwobi played on the right and Auba on the left in some games, if we switched them around it would've made a huge difference.
NieThePiet
Loves Overhyping Our Rivals
If Emery only wants to play with one striker, he has probably to play Lacazette, because Auba is often useless without him.
Played it against Leicester and we saw how good they looked together. Unfortunately Emery was too quick to abandon it just because they didn't play as well together against Crystal Palace in the next game.
Furious
Emery Gone, Telly Back On
True, but whenever we've tried something like it, it's been Auba on the left with Mhki/Iwobi on right.
Really think we'd have great balance with Iwobi-Özil-Auba behind Laca. But yeah, Emery and changes, lol.
James Bond
Moderation Consultant
PEA looks half he player when up front alone. We look a bit hopeless too as a team as we only have a long ball over the top as an out ball since PEA isn't very good and holding things up.
Lacazette is streets better at holding things up and linking the midfield so then when played with PEA and as him always looks to play on the last shoulder of their defenders it gives their defenders two very different threats to deal with.
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Country: Canada
Honestly even with Auba on the left it's a lot better than him up front alone. Just getting those three all playing at once helps us so much, its hard to understand why it's not priority no. 1.
Going to have games like today with his limited skillset & our transitions lacking any structure. The number of goals speak for them self though... Just another level to Lacazette.
razörist
Soft With The Ladies, Hard With The Mes
Country: Morocco
Aubameyang goals in the Premier League:
1: against Cardiff with Laca
2: against Everton with Laca
3: against Fulham with Laca
4: against Fulham without Laca
5: against Leicester with Laca
6: against Leicester with Laca
7: against Palace with Laca
8: against Bournemouth without Laca
9: against Sp**s without Laca (penalty)
10: against Sp**s with Laca
11: against Burnley with Laca
12: against Burnley with Laca
13: against Brighton with Laca
Give Auba his strikepartner back!
1: against Cardiff with Laca
2: against Everton with Laca
3: against Fulham with Laca
4: against Fulham without Laca
5: against Leicester with Laca
6: against Leicester with Laca
7: against Palace with Laca
8: against Bournemouth without Laca
9: against Sp**s without Laca (penalty)
10: against Sp**s with Laca
11: against Burnley with Laca
12: against Burnley with Laca
13: against Brighton with Laca
Give Auba his strikepartner back!
RacingPhoton
Established Member
Have been pointing this out for a long time. Great that someone has actually written down the stats and facts. When you have a player like Auba alone up front, it is easy for defenders to plan and mark him. Auba just makes runs and other players have to find his runs. If the defenders could maintain proper offside trap or have a quick defender who could mark him and block his runs, Auba is essentially nullified.
When you have Laca and Auba together, it is hard for defenders to come up with a plan. You cannot live Laca freely with the ball for long. He has a lethal and powerful shot. This means they have to commit more players on Laca. As Laca has the strength to hold the ball and defenders along with him, it makes easier for Auba to take his runs behind.
The only other way to solve this problem is to have midfielders/wingers who are strong goal scoring threat and defenders have to commit on them. But unfortunately we don't have one. The best we could do with current squad is to play both Laca and Auba along with Özil. If the midfielder could transition the ball to Özil, Özil should find one of Laca/Auba based on the situation. That's what Özil is good at. Let him do that. Let Laca/Auba do what they are good at and score goals for fun.
This guy isn't a lone striker. We'd have been better off keeping Giroud and playing him today.
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