Arsenal: Sell Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, yes, but don’t loan him

Per Charles Watts of Goal, Barcelona are preparing a loan offer for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. While Arsenal should consider selling, a loan exit would be ill-advised, to say the least.

The future of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is an increasingly murky and uncertain subject. Arsenal’s top goalscorer and primary attacking threat has been central to their play since his arrival two years ago, but now in the final 18 months of his deal and yet another season without Champions League football on the horizon, questions regarding his desire to remain in north London have arisen.

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Aubameyang himself has refuted his reported want to leave. But the logical conclusion is that he would. He is a Champions League player, someone who is capable of playing at the highest level. Arsenal can no longer offer him that.

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From the club’s perspective, selling him would not be as disastrous as it might seem. Yes, Aubameyang is a prolific goalscorer and arguably the most important player in the current squad, but he is already the wrong side of 30, cannot play the centre-forward role under Mikel Arteta’s instruction due to his inconsistent first touch and struggles with his back to the goal, and could help provide a crucial injection of cash for the club to reinvest in other areas.

Should the right offer arrive, something north of £50 million, the Gunners might consider cashing in and using that money to invest in an elite centre-back or winger or central midfielder, positions that are much weaker and more important to Arteta’s system at present. However, the benefits of any such sale are predicated on receiving just value for an elite performer who would need to be ably replaced.

The advantage to selling Aubameyang is not simply offloading a player that the club does not want or need. In fact, it is the complete opposite. It is selling a player that is wanted and needed to sign a better-suited player at a more pressing position of need. All this, then, would be utterly undermined should Aubameyang, say, leave on a temporary six-month loan.

According to Charles Watts and Ignasi Oliva of Goal, Barcelona have made an audacious loan bid for Aubameyang as they scramble to find a centre-forward following Luis Suarez’s surgery on his lateral meniscus in his right knee that will keep him out of action for four months. With Aubameyang’s future up in the air, the Catalan club held a tentative belief that they could force a move through, using their clout and Champions League status to sway Aubameyang.

Arsenal should — and almost certainly will — stand firm. While there have been plenty of well-reasoned arguments made for selling Aubameyang at the end of the season, no one is naive enough to think that letting your top goalscorer leave for six months on a temporary deal is a smart move. That’s because, quite simply, it isn’t. Without any significant numerical return, why in the world would you agree to let Aubameyang leave?

So yes, there are sound reasons for selling Aubameyang, and, in fact, I have been and will be an advocate for that move in the summer. But the advantage of selling is the opportunity to buy. A loan deal does not provide that opportunity. This really would be stupid.