If you look around on the internet but also in the press you will see that there doesn't seem to be as many articles on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang compared with the other top strikers in the Premier League and in Europe. This is kind of weird as Aubameyang has been scoring more goals in the last 3 and half season than any other strikers in Britain. Not only that.
He is the Premier League top scorer in a newly created team that is still moving the first steps to find the rhythm and the right shape. 'The funny thing is that lots of people have reservations about Aubameyang and this is also extended to Arsenal fans' said John Pentin, popular UK football tips and best betting sites review expert. '
As it usually happens in North London, after the heavy defeat against Liverpool there was a temptation to start questioning everything. Some fans even said that perhaps Aubameyang could have converted and netted a higher percentage of chances. But then when we look at the numbers, we can see that actually, he is the Premier League top scorer.
When confronted with those numbers people and even Arsenal fans show some vague sense of surprise. The reason why he is confusing people is that football has become a crowded thing with lots of noise and opinions. In such an environment even a top scorer can go unnoticed.
The reality though is that no one in any top European league has scored more goals from fewer shots: so Aubameyang is up there with the very best and when I say the very best I also include the likes of Cristiano Ronald and Lionel Messi.'
Looking at Aumabeyang history, we can see that one of his most powerful skill is to go unnoticed and yet make the difference. Against Chelsea, the Arsenal striker has played for full 90 minutes and touched the ball 18 times. Against Tottenham, he has produced a terrific performance with just 44 touches scoring 2 goals and 1 assist.
But this is his style of playing, it is in fact nothing new. If you look at some YouTube video, you will see that the first goal Aubameyang scored against an English team was at the World Youth Championships in Malaysia back in 2007. He was playing for AC Milan at the time: also in this circumstance it was a one-touch killer. Yet, AC Milan didn't notice him, and they end up letting him go. They didn't even give him a contract. What a shame for the Italians!
Up until today the only clubs that have decided to invest in this great smooth goalscoring machine are St Etienne, Borussia Dortmund and Arsenal. The Germans agreed to sell him because they 'noticed' that he was starting to do less, to move less and couldn't follow the team plan as before.
This is all part of the Aubameyang paradox that we are trying to analyse in this article. He is undoubtedly a modern footballing athlete that could have played very well in any pre-Premier league teams. When the 4-4-2 was the rule, there were two main types of forward.
There was the typical Big Man (think about an Andy Carroll in good form) and the fast, smooth (think about Lineker or Aubameyang type) who will have the freshness and speed to make good runs and also finish well the few chances he could get during the game.
Aubameyang success in the Premier League this year goes a long way to prove that this type of strategy is still supremely useful in the 'Pep Guardiola/Tiki-Taka' era. He tends to score when games are particularly tight and in the second halves: this has given a massive boost to Emery's top 4 finish ambitions.
Yet, lots of Arsenal fans still prefer the more aggressive Alexandre Lacazette while others are still keen to see the 'hardly shining' diamond of Mesut Ozil which is the symbol of the late Wenger decadent era.
What Aubameyang success is telling us is that, despite all the PR, the game hasn't changed that much in the last 20 years. Probably the main difference between Manchester City of this year compared with the Manchester City of last year is that they had their own killer in-front either out of form or injured.
As always games are won or lost by the smaller margins: try to put Aubameyang at Man City and almost certainly they could have won all the games that they have lost recently.
All that Pep-ball legendary story is nice to read but, in fact, games as still decided by some minimalist strikers: you don't see them for most of the time, but when you see them it is too late as the ball is already in the back of the net. Yes, precisely as Aubameyang.