Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard has revealed he and his teammates will "welcome back" Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to the Emirates Stadium this evening.
Aubameyang spent over four years with the Gunners from 2018 until 2022 where he scored 68 Premier League goals in 128 appearances for the north Londoners. The 33-year-old captained the side from November 2019 until March 2022 and in that time, he lifted the FA Cup for Arsenal. However, he was stripped of the captaincy in March of last year due to disciplinary reasons.
Supporters got a brief taste of what happened behind the scenes thanks to the Amazon documentary series, 'All or Nothing', that followed Arsenal around last season. It showed a furious Mikel Arteta ranting about Aubameyang's multiple discipline issues during his time at the Emirates, which effectively led to him moving to Barcelona on a free transfer in the summer of 2022.
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However, there is a clear respect from Arteta when it comes to Aubameyang and what he managed to achieve during his time in north London. The Arsenal boss, when speaking in his pre-match press conference on Monday, urged the home supporters to be "respectful" of their former striker.
"Let's say thank you," the Spaniard said. "Pay respect and gratitude for what he was. He was an incredible player for us, scored a lot of goals, he was our captain, and he deserves that. Say thank you and be grateful."
It's a sentiment that Arteta's captain Odegaard shares. The Norway international played with Aubameyang towards the end of the striker's tenure with the club and has revealed he and his Gunners colleagues will be welcoming the forward back to the Emirates this evening.
"Now we have to look at the next games, starting tonight against Chelsea," the Gunners playmaker said in his pre-match programme notes. "All we can do now is do our own job properly, and not look anywhere else. We have to make sure we win the rest of the games, but we need to just look at it day by day, get back to doing the simple things and doing everything properly as we have done all season.
"We have to play our part, and that starts now against Chelsea. We have to make sure we win the game and keep going. Our job is to control the things we can, and make sure we keep it alive. That's a big challenge tonight because Chelsea have got so much quality all over the pitch, and on the bench as well. It's an amazing squad.
"From the outside I don't know what has been happening there, but as players we are focussed on what we will face on the pitch and they have so many unbelievable players to choose from, so we have to be very, very sharp, get back to our level and strike back."
Odegaard added: "We will welcome Auba back tonight as well. I played with him a bit before he left here, and I know about the amazing things he did here before that.
"He had some really good moments here, especially winning the FA Cup. We remember the great things he did for the club, and he is a great guy as well."
What's gone wrong for Auba at Chelsea?
Aubameyang joined Chelsea in the summer transfer window from Barcelona for around £10million. Back then, Thomas Tuchel was in charge at Stamford Bridge with the German a huge admirer of the striker and wanting to rekindle the success the pair shared together when working at Borussia Dortmund.
Just days after Aubameyang joined, however, Tuchel was sacked from his role. Graham Potter then came in and gave the Gabonese striker a fair chance in the early days of his tenure.
He actually started in five of Potter's first six matches in charge of Chelsea and scored in three successive games against Crystal Palace and then home and away versus AC Milan. That was back in October, though, and the 34th minute strike against Milan remains his last goal for the Blues.
Potter is of course now gone, having been sacked from the club at the start of last month following a severe lack of progress. Aubameyang was left out of the Champions League squad for the knockout stages of the competition following a very busy January transfer window from Chelsea in terms of incomings.
If needed, that was perhaps the clearest indication that he was not part of Potter's plans at Stamford Bridge. The former Arsenal captain has been handed more opportunities under interim head coach Frank Lampard, with the striker playing in two of his first five matches in charge in west London, including a 45-minute cameo against Brentford last week where he did have an impact on the game despite Chelsea losing 2-0 to the Bees.
Aubameyang, though, has not started a Premier League game for Chelsea since the defeat to Arsenal at Stamford Bridge in November of last year. Lampard did speak on Aubameyang in Monday's pre-match press conference and revealed how impressed he has been with the striker.
"He couldn't play in the two Champions League games. He came on against Wolves in the second-half and against Brentford," the interim Chelsea boss said. "And I think more than any other position on the pitch, to be sharp and firing and consistent in your work is what makes the top strikers.
"Taking them out of the team for a while and coming back with a lack of edge is very, very difficult. The top strikers tend to play regularly, stay fit and score goals. It goes hand in hand. When I came in it was clear Auba hadn't played in terms of minutes this season and maybe even going back to last season.
"But it was also clear about the level of the player, so for me I have had no time to look at players over big areas in training because you have a game coming in two or three days to see where he is at. It was good to see him come on against Brentford and see the way he looked.
"I still won't put too much on him because he might still need that bit of time. Maybe we haven't got time for him this season so much. But he is a high, high level striker and I understand the question to see him involved until the end of the season.
"The fans have seen it like that all season. And the selection of the team has changed a lot this season with attacking players whether Auba is playing or not at times. So it's not as clear as that. So it's not where we as coaches will say that's the obvious viewpoint from the outside and I get it. But when you work every day and you talk to the players and see how they are physically and where they are at in training.
"But in Auba over a short period it has been hard for me to gauge that but when he came on against Brentford you saw the different feeling in the team. One thing for sure he is a very high level player but clearly in a situation where he is not at his freshest or sharpest.
"I will want a No.9 that I can play off and that we can rely on. It's not ideal for me to ask Raheem [Sterling] or Joao [Felix] to play in that No.9 role. We had to in the games against Real Madrid. There are a lot of things to put together and the solution is not always easy. I have to see if they are ready to play or not."
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