Footie Central | Football Blog Blogging the football world
Arsenal are ready to perform a U-turn when it comes to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
The Gabonese striker is under contract at the Emirates until 2021, but, with him having refused to sign a new deal, the Gunners were ready to sell him this summer to ensure they did not repeat previous mistakes and allow a valuable asset to leave for free when his contract expired.
But that was before the financial impact of the coronavirus, which has hit player values hard, meaning that Arsenal cannot expect to get anything like the amount for Aubameyang that they would have got before.
With Arsenal now expected to get more than £20 million for him, they are now ready to go against their own policy and keep him for the final year, recognising that it would cost them more to sign an adequate replacement.
At the same time, Mikel Arteta is expected to personally enter discussions with Aubameyang to try and convince him to stay at the club long-term.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.