Arsenal: The disastrous truth of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang absence

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is set to face a three-game suspension after his red card against Crystal Palace. His absence reveals a disastrous truth: Arsenal lack goalscorers.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang always looked like he might be in trouble. Even when the referee initially brandished a yellow card for his lunging foul on Max Meyer, as soon as the replays showed the true extent of his challenge, it was quite clear that his discipline was borderline, to say the least. And the longer VAR took a look at his tackle, the more inevitable the end result was.

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Aubameyang was subsequently sent off. Arsenal played the remainder of the match with ten men, Gabriel Martinelli introduced as they switched to a 4-4-1 shape to deal with the numerical disadvantage. They actually handled the latter stages of the match well, but that is just a start of their Aubameyang-less troubles.

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While the Gunners dealt with no Aubameyang well to close out the Crystal Palace draw, his absence will unquestionably be problematic for the team and their fortunes over the next three matches. Indeed, head coach Mikel Arteta conceded as much in his post-match press conference:

"“That’s a massive blow. We know how important Auba is for the team. Maybe we’re going to lose him for a couple of games.”"

Aubameyang has been sensational throughout his third season at the club. He has 14 Premier League goals in 22 games, a club-leading figure that ranks joint-second in the entire league. Only Jamie Vardy has scored more. He has been utterly prolific.

Not just that, though. Arsenal have been largely dependent on Aubameyang’s prolific nature. He has scored 48.2% of the team’s league goals this season. Only Southampton’s Danny Ings, who also 14 goals on the year, has scored a higher proportion of his team’s goals this season. In comparison, Vardy, who has 17 goals, has still only scored 36.2% of Leicester City’s goals.

While there are other prolific scorers in the league like Vardy, Sergio Aguero, Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford, they play in teams that have other players to share the goalscoring burden with. Arsenal’s second-highest scorer in the Premier League is Alexandre Lacazette with five. The only other non-defender to have more than one league goal is Nicolas Pepe, with three.

Put simply and plainly, Arsenal do not have another goalscorer outside of Aubameyang. Lacazette may find his form again, admittedly, and Pepe might finally figure out the Premier League, while the emergence of Gabriel Martinelli could provide another scoring option. But you wouldn’t describe these avenues as particularly dependable.

All in all, the Gunners have only scored 29 goals this season. And Aubameyang has almost half of them. His absence, then, paints quite a plain and painful truth: this team does not have many goalscorers. And that, if you were wondering, is not very good.