It was January 2022 and Mikel Arteta wanted a striker. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had been banished from the first-team squad after returning late from a trip to see his unwell mother in France – an incident the Gabon striker claimed in a recent interview that the Arsenal manager described as a “knife in his back” – and would never play for the club again.
But with time against them in the notoriously exorbitant January market and unwilling to meet the €90m (£75m) release clause in the contract of Real Sociedad’s Alexander Isak, the decision was made not to go for the Sweden striker and wait until the summer to see what else came up.
