Mikel Arteta kept a dossier of all the times Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was late before stripping him of the Arsenal captaincy.
Director of football Edu admitted it was difficult to back Arteta’s decision to exile the striker, who was dropped from the team in December before Arsenal’s executive celebrated terminating his contract in the final minutes of the January transfer window, before he then joined Barcelona.
And Arteta revealed in Amazon Prime’s All or Nothing documentary that he made a record of all the damning evidence he had assembled about Aubameyang.
He explained to Arsenal’s communications director Mark Gonnella: “That’s why I have everything documented with the dates, the times, when it happened, how it happened. He has been late apart from all the issues many times.”
In a meeting with Edu and chief executive Vinai Venkatesham, director of football operations Richard Garlick said: “Mikel has a file, a catalogue of misdemeanours, which culminated in this.”
Aubameyang, who cost Arsenal £56million when he joined from Borussia Dortmund in 2018, scored 92 goals for the club and had 18 months remaining on a contract worth £350,000 a week when Arteta decided to get rid of him because their relationship had broken down.
Edu said it was not easy to support his manager’s decision to dispense with the prolific forward, explaining: “No, because [of] how many goals Aubameyang score for the club.”
Garlick and Edu planned to speak to both the striker and the manager, aiming to reintegrate the striker into the squad for the rest of the season.
They felt it was a no-win situation. “Everyone is losing,” said Edu. Garlick added: “This problem is not going away.”
Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale said during the impasse that he hoped Aubameyang would be picked again but Arteta said they had reached the point of no return: “When I look in his eyes and saw that level of trust was gone.”
The club’s powerbrokers then decided that they were better off paying Aubameyang off than loaning him out, with Edu admitting: “No one is going to buy him. If he goes on loan it is the worst possible scenario for us.”
Garlick added: “We don’t want him coming back. We want a clean break. Long term, the club is in a much better position.”
