Arsenal: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang could very well stay

All anyone can talk about these days is what happens when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leaves Arsenal… but he hasn’t left yet.

You’d think, given the headlines, that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had already announced that he was going to leave Arsenal, and the only question remaining was where he would go.

We’ve heard rumors of both Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as a standard peep from Moneybags United, with a rumored fee of £50m, which has, unfortunately, come down from the reported £70m of just a few months back. Still, that amount of money would be an injection into the summer coffers (I really hate that word, by the way).

But what so may seem to be neglecting is that Aubameyang is still here. He’s still going to be suiting up in the red and white and there’s zero guarantee he will be leaving. In fact, there is still a very high likelihood that he stays.

I get the need to prepare for the worst, so we’re all talking about what happens if he leaves and how can we adjust. But what if he stays?

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Aubameyang loves this club, he’s made that clear. He wants to stay. But for him, the two big obstacles are Champions League football and wages. Wages are easily fixable. Just ditch Mesut Ozil. Boom. Done.

And honestly, Champions League football isn’t so hard as it once seemed. With that game in hand, the Gunners can move within two points of the top five. For a team like them, that’s trending upwards, that is an open opportunity amidst a slew of teams like United, Chelsea, Wolverhampton and more who just can’t find any sort of consistency.

The opportunity is there to get Aubameyang to stay. Honestly, the only reason we would sell him is if we miss out on the Champions League, but as that still hangs in the balance, nothing dictates that we have to get rid of him.

More than that, as mentioned before, since he wants to stay, even if we do miss out on the Champions League, there is still a chance we keep him if we can offload Mesut Ozil and free up the cash to pay Aubameyang the money he has earned.

Prepare for his exit all you want, and it’s a useful exercise, but at the end of the day, don’t give up on him staying either. I don’t think anyone would gripe about him staying.