Arsenal: Aubameyang searching for sense where there is none

Arsenal’s latest Golden Boot winner Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has demanded answers for his FIFA 20 ranking, but he’ll find no sense here.

It makes me happy when professional athletes take petty offense to the same thing I do. After ranting about FIFA 20’s Arsenal player ratings for the past few days, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has lashed out as well, demanding to know why he is only an 88 overall, and why his shooting is only an 85.

Who can argue? Aubameyang is rated the same as Raheem Sterling and Edinson Cavani, the former of whom is good, but no Golden Boot winner, and the latter of whom has been beating up lesser Ligue 1 opposition his entire career.

Aubameyang took his successes in the Bundelsiga and proved himself to be a true international treasure by continuing that success at the Emirates, culminating in him winning the Golden Boot alongside Mo Salah (rated a 90) and Sadio Mane (88 as well). And to be fair, Salah and Mane are playing on a supercharged attack, whereas Aubameyang was dealing with an attack that didn’t even have any chance creators.

It’s called context, and FIFA 20 is grossly lacking in it.

Naturally, I’m with Aubameyang, as you might have been able to tell from previous articles about FIFA’s endeavors to quantify the value of these superstars.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

• 3 standout players from 1-0 victory over Everton
• 3 positives & negatives from Goodison Park victory
• Arsenal vs PSV preview: Prediction, team news & lineups
• 3 talking points from Arsenal’s victory at Goodison Park
• Mikel Arteta provides Gabriel Martinelli injury update after Everton win

Here we have a striker who does nothing but score—that’s his thing. It’s what he does. It’s what he has built a career on, and they could only see fit to slip him an 85 in the shooting department. Now, I know he misses his fair share of chances, but who doesn’t? And if you compare “worst misses” across Auba, Salah, Mane and Cavani, guess what? I’d wager that Auba has the least egregious of the bunch.

I can think of some off the top of my head that the other three have missed without even going to look for them.

Aubameyang is the best striker in the league, and he should be rated as such to reflect it. What else can he do besides win a Golden Boot? Flop more? Maybe then he could match Harry Kane‘s ridiculous 89.

And the craziest thing is Aubameyang is improving. You can see it when he takes the pitch. Those things he does outside of scoring are improving, like ball movement and movement off the ball, passing, finding space, all that stuff. It’s getting better.

But EA Sports wouldn’t know anything about that.

It’s okay, Auba. We know you should match Salah’s 90. We know you should be better than Kane. Because you are better than Kane and you are as good as, if not better than Salah.