Aubameyang’s Arsenal struggles have multiple causes

Leaving the Emirates Stadium on Saturday with a clean sheet, two goals and three points meant it was smiles almost all round for Arsenal. On another day where youth blossomed, seniority struggled.

Prior to the season beginning, the chances of success had been pinned down on a few key factors. There were individual elements that if not achieved would severely hamper chances of meeting the targets set. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang getting back among the goals was one of them.

And, what would you know, he’s the club’s top scorer this season. But, honing in on what is the competition of greatest importance, he has four goals in 12 Premier League matches. His blank against the Magpies made it four matches in a row without scoring, and five consecutively without a goal in open play.

There is always this sadistic urge for a scapegoat in matches, even if the result goes the team’s way: Aubameyang has found himself filling in for that role more often than not. Plenty of the criticism is overboard, but trends don’t happen coincidentally and he is well off where everyone hoped he’d be when he signed his three-year contract.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s Arsenal struggles are the result of poor team chance creation and the natural decline of the striker’s superpowers

He is applying himself in other areas though, and rarely before has he looked his engaged in matches where his work rate has been this dedicated. No other player in the squad has applied more pressures than him this season.

But he isn’t scoring. That is his job. And mishaps like the Watford game change outlook with further installments.

As magnificent as he can be in the 18-yard box, he’s mostly unusable elsewhere. This term he’s dropped into the half-space more often and delivered a few very neat one-touch passes for Emile Smith Rowe that are clearly the work of training ground routines, but for the most part his involvement is minimal.

The goals are drying up and faith in him to be recapturing his goalscoring form of yesteryear is too. Why is this?

Firstly, it quite simply boils down to the number of chances being created across the team. Arsenal are creating fewer goalscoring opportunities, which means that Aubameyang is having fewer chances. Put whichever striker you want up front at Anfield and they would have had the same single second half chance that Aubameyang had.

Overall chance creation is still worryingly low: 15 goals in 13 league matches where the likes of Nicolas Pepe, Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard have a combined three goals. While the starting centre-forward is the one who has the leading role in finding the back of the net, it’s a team-wide issue that has yet to be rectified. The whole team isn’t scoring, not just the skipper.

Does that mean Aubameyang is free of blame? It most definitely does not, sadly.

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Aubameyang is Losing His Magic Scoring Touch

The captain is getting fewer chances to score, but he’s also scoring fewer with what he has.

The Newcastle game acts as an example of where he is in his career; the glaring miss in the first half was terrible, but, it happens. It’s not to be excused, of course, but it’s one that can be listed as ‘one of those’. After all, Aubameyang has missed big chances all his career, even when he’s been in the peak of his powers at Arsenal.

It’s one thing having a striker of his calibre and another making signings and tactical alterations that don’t suit him. When he isn’t touching the ball he is never involved outside of his excellent off-the-ball harassing.

Where there is some worry, however, and a fairer reflection of his superpowers fading, is in the chance after the break when Smith Rowe plays him in on goal.

It’s a moment where you stop and can’t help but wonder whether the Aubameyang of two years ago would have scored it. On this occasion it could be argued that the pass is slightly overhit, yet Aubameyang is close to being able to dink it over Martin Dubravka and just lacks that bit of punch needed in his strides to apply the finishing touch.

What’s happening is a combination of the chances not arriving in the same volume as previously, and the striker on the receiving end of them not possessing the same degree of superpower he once had.

It’s both, not one or the other. Give Aubameyang enough chances to score and he will still find the back of the net. The difference is whether he would find it as frequently with the same quantity of opportunities, and the answer is he probably wouldn’t.

Still absolutely devastating in the penalty box, this is more routinely the case of a centre-forward entering the twilight of his career. His energy levels are superb, his leadership and work rate improved, he just lacks the magic scoring touch he once had.

In that Magpies win he recorded a 0.7 xG. If he gets a 0.7 xG every game he will be hitting the numbers this team needs him to be with ease. The obvious problem is, well, that he isn’t, because systemically he’s not consistently getting those numbers, and when he is, he isn’t taking them.

While the overall structure has to provide more though, it might also be worth coming to terms with Arsenal possessing a striker who isn’t who he once was.