Arteta bites back in Aubameyang feud
MIKEL ARTETA has hit back at Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang over the rift which resulted in the striker’s exit from Arsenal.
Aubameyang joined Barcelona on a free last week after being stripped of the captaincy and frozen out following a breach of discipline. He claimed his ‘only problem’ at Arsenal was the manager.
But Arteta responded: ‘The way I see myself in that relationship is as the solution, not the problem.
‘I do a lot wrong but the intention all the time is the best, for the club and the team.’
Aubameyang is not the first man to be ostracised by Arteta, with Mesut Ozil and Matteo Guendouzi suffering the same fate.
‘I don’t think I am too hard,’ said Arteta. ‘But there are some minimums, a line you cannot cross. If somebody is going to cross it because he has 25 or 30 goals, the dressing room has to accept it. If they are happy, with me there is no problem.’ Asked if Arsenal’s dressing room was unwilling to accommodate a player not following the rules, Arteta said: ‘I don’t work with impressions, I work with facts. ‘I want to sense where this is going and, if possible, anticipate issues.’ Arsenal have just Alexandre Lacazette and Eddie Nketiah left as strikers for the rest of the season and have gone four games without scoring. Arteta added: ‘When you make a decision, we had won six games in a row and I didn’t have one question about “do you have enough goals in the team?”. ‘But our decision can’t be based on that, because if so then I know where we’re going with this and it’s not where we want to take the club.’