Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang never felt like the answer to many questions over the summer. He doesn't feel like the answer to many now.
The point of a striker 'that just scores goals' is that they still have to get the ball in some way. Chelsea aren't giving Aubameyang that. When they do, his passing is really poor. It's so poor that when you start to actually analyse his passing and watch him try to link play you realise how inadequate that part of his game is, but that's not why you sign him.
These things don't matter in the short term if you can get him the ball. When Graham Potter has Reece James - when anyone has Reece James - things become easier. Anything is possible. He can create things from nothing and find the striker tuned into one frequency, goals FM. It's no surprise that all of Aubameyang's four Chelsea goals came with James on the field. Half of them he assisted.
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For what Chelsea and Potter need Aubameyang to be he is the perfect example of the opposite. Yes, he scores goals, but notice that since James has been injured he hasn't? When the chances dry up he doesn't create. His assists and xA (expected assists) are in the bottom 50% of strikers according to Fbref. His shot creating actions are in the bottom 9%.
His passing is poor. He tries on average 20 per game and completes 73% of them, most of them are short and therefore easier. His dribbling numbers are low, progressive passes almost don't exist. This isn't to say he's a bad striker, he scores goals. But Chelsea have tried this before, Thomas Tuchel tried it with somebody who was genuinely playing at a world class level with Romelu Lukaku and it didn't work.
Aubameyang doesn't really fit for Potter short-term or long. It was a desperate attempt to find someone who could put the ball in the net, but that doesn't really matter when the ball doesn't go in the right place. Aubameyang isn't Potter's choice or fit for a forward, though Potter's strikers have never been out-and-out goalscorers.
Now, with a 33-year-old left with just over 18-months on his contract, Chelsea know they need to go and find another striker at some point. Armando Broja hasn't had the gametime to show he can become a consistent source of goals, nor has he had the service. And Potter could do with some players that fit his desired playstyle.
Arsenal are the current example to use for Chelsea. Not only are they flying high at the top of the table, they gave their manager time and have reaped the rewards. The irony that Aubameyang has gone on to be part of a struggling Chelsea side is not lost on many. Mikel Arteta struggled with his game as he tried to move towards a pressing, dynamic and fluid attack, Potter has found the same issues and needs an answer to turn things around.
At Brighton it was Danny Welbeck, he makes very few attempts to pass but when he does it works, not quite a link-up man but a wall to bounce a ball off. Off the ball he is brilliant and ranks inside the top 30% for all strikers in the defensive metrics.
90 min report that the answer to Chelsea's striker issues may well be seen as Marcus Thuram or Brentford's Ivan Toney. The pair are very different to Christopher Nkunku, who is being brought in as an attacking midfielder with creativity and dribbling at the forefront of his skillset.
When it comes to Toney and Thuram compared to Aubameyang and Welbeck, the English striker is perhaps the closest in terms of style to Welbeck with brilliant workrate and defensive contributions as a physical striker with an eye for goal.
Thuram is a better dribbler than the rest and is more direct. He's having a brilliant goalscoring season too, with 10 in his first 15 games. He's never scored more than 10 in a season either which shows his form. Toney was unlucky not to be in England's 26-man World Cup squad and was considered over the summer as an option too.
Although a striker alone doesn't solve the issues at Chelsea, Aubameyang doesn't looked suited to Potter's style, especially without James. Whether the answer could be Thuram or Toney is hard to know, Chelsea's chance creation has been a serious issue, but that's what Nkunku is for.
Thuram and Toney do have closer profiles to that of Welbeck, but whether that's the direction Potter wants to go in at Chelsea is uncertain. He may feel that with more money and access to better technical players he can use a different style. For all of this, we'll just have to wait.
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