Arsenal: 3 questions regarding Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang negotiations

2. How much will it cost?

In conjunction with timeframe is cost. As Arsenal have experienced in the past, signing players to massive bumper new deals rarely ends well. Mesut Ozil is the most famous example, the club having been financially crippled ever since he signed a £350,000-per-week contract in the same week that Aubameyang arrived in north London, but there are others who have left Arsenal in the lurch.

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They have struggled to sell Shkodran Mustafi, Sokratis, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Alexis Sanchez, even Mohamed Elneny and plenty of others as a result of the wages that these players earned. Because the Gunners were so massively overpaying and any new club would have to match those wages, potential buyers dropped their offers to a level that the club felt was unacceptable.

If Arsenal were to sign Aubameyang to the £350,000-per-week wage that they signed Ozil to — and Aubameyang would be well within his rights to demand that type of wage given his importance to the team — in a year or two, they might find themselves financially strangled as they did with Ozil.

Of course, the team will be better for keeping Aubameyang. Only Mohamed Salah has scored more Premier League goals since January 2018. But the club must also come to terms with their present financial situation, and it is not one that allows them to lavishly match the highest earners in the game. No matter how brilliant he has been, a new Aubameyang contract must be cost-effective.