Arsenal: Why is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang serially underrated?

Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored 22 league goals last season and is coming off four years of sensational goal production. So why is he serially underrated?

It took until 2018 for Sergio Aguero to be named to the PFA Premier League Team of the Year. Some injuries, of course, were hampered by injury and so he was often overlooked in favour of lesser alternatives, but ever since his arrival at Manchester City in 2011, the Argentine has routinely been one of the very best centre-forwards in world football.

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So how come he has been serially underrated by his fellow pros and not just the average fan in the pub after the matches? Well, I wonder if the perspective that has plagued Aguero is also what has plagued Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

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Out-and-out goal poachers are a dying breed. WIth the game evolving in a more rounded manner than ever before, with wingers scoring goals and strikers tracking back defensively, the role of a pure goal-getter has depreciated in frequency and value. The influx of strikers like Thierry Henry who could score goals, dribble past defenders and create chances or Didier Drogba who could also score goals but was also integral to the build-up has seen the goal poacher shrink into the shadows.

Aubameyang and Aguero are better than just pure goal poachers, but if you were to consider any of the modern-day strikers to be throwback goalscorers, it would be the Aubameyang and Aguero. They are quite happy to not receive regular touches of the ball, they do not want to be involved in the combination play in the midfield, they simply want to be in the penalty area at all times, making the net ripple as often as possible.

This is why I believe that both are often overlooked when the conversation of the best players in the world is brought up. People are drawn, naturally, to those that are more skilful, that produce those highlight moments that make the jaw drop. Very few of Aguero or Aubameyang’s goals are sensational. They are simple, and so they rarely garner the attention they deserve.

Aubameyang’s skill in his movement, both the athletic speed of it and the intelligence of it. His anticipation to sniff out chances is phenomenal, and it means that he often pops in what look like very easy tap-ins. That is because the actual finish is very easy, but the quality of the move has come prior to that, in the movement off the ball.

Over the past four years, Aubameyang has averaged a league goal every 103.6 minutes. That is an absolutely outrageous scoring rate, one that very few players in the world can replicate over such an extended period. His 22 Premier League goals last season were good enough for a joint Golden Boot, and he has been involved in 53 goals in 64 games since he signed for Arsenal last January.

Aubameyang is a truly brilliant footballer. And yet, I cannot help but feel is not quite considered elite. He is serially underrated, and it might be because putting the ball in the back of the net is a seemingly bygone skill. But thank God that Arsenal have him because that bygone skill has been most precious.