Arsenal: Predicting every summer sale with potential price

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – £50 million

If there is one sale that Arsenal can make to define their transfer window, it is that of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The club captain, the top goalscorer, the likely Player of the Season. Selling such a player is far from ideal, but there are contextual factors that might make it necessary — and even desirable.

Aubameyang has one year remaining on an expensive contract. He will need to be signed to an even more expensive one if he is to stay. He will be 31 this summer. Should he continue stalling negotiations regarding an extension, the club will be forced to sell, and this will be the last summer they can get any value for their best player.

Quite what Aubameyang will fetch is extremely difficult to say. Under a long contract and in his prime, he would be worth well over the £100 million mark. Given the circumstances, Arsenal will do well to recoup the £52 million they spent on him.

Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette are also sale candidates of a similar ilk: older, expensive, not long remaining on their contracts. However, in Ozil’s case, no one will buy and Lacazette has an extra year on his contract. For now, I expect them to stay. But the same cannot be said for Aubameyang.