Arsenal: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang literally has no limit

Arsenal saw another hat-trick from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and, in case you were wondering, the answer is no, he has no limit.

Olivier Giroud did a lot of fantastic things for Arsenal while he was here. His positioning, his physical presence, his aerial dominance, they were all truly wonderful things. But the one thing he did not do is provide a boundless, open expanse of goal-scoring potential.

Actually, not many people do that. I would wager that the list is rather small. Even Alexandre Lacazette has his limitations, as he can get into his own head, he gets involved in other ways, so on and so forth.

But Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is one of the few. When you talk about how many he can score, you can’t really put a cap on it, can you? With Giroud, it was usually 15 or so, and that was good.

With Lacazette, I’d give him a 20-25 goal potential.

With Aubameyang, he could score 50 and I’d say, “you know, it’s not that surprising.” Because that’s all he does. And that is part of the beauty of having him in the current system. We have other guys doing other things. We have guys that create, guys that penetrate, guys that make runs and twist and turn and do fancy things.

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And then we have Aubameyang, who literally just runs and scores. It makes his job a tad dependent on his team mates being able to find him and pick out his runs, but with his speed and his infinite potential to find space, there isn’t a lot of work for his team mates to do either.

Punt the ball forward. Watch him chase it. Watch him score. When it’s that easy – and it is that easy – the ceiling can’t be set. With Giroud, he needed service, and movement around him. He needed aerial prominence.

With Lacazette, there is more freedom, as he can score from distance, but he doesn’t boast the same kind of speed to facilitate what Aubameyang’s speed facilities.

You can even throw in Danny Welbeck, who has amazing speed as well, but lacks the ease and composure to finish like Aubameyang.

I’ve been doing a lot of gushing this summer, and I’ll gush all the more after seeing Aubameyang thrash home another hat-trick against Boreham Woods. Because this is what he does, and it’s what he will keep doing.

Next: Arsenal Complete 2017/18 Player Ratings

It feels good, to have such a simple approach. It’s not been like this in quite some time.

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