Chelsea have been linked with a stunning move for former Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The striker only left England in January to join Barcelona, but is already on the possible list of outgoings from Catalonia as Juan Laporta tries to shift some of the financial issues, even temporarily.
Thomas Tuchel also isn't hiding his desperation for reinforcements at Chelsea. He has been extremely public with his desire for not only new signings but also an exodus of outgoings as well as the transfer window enters its final month.
The new ownership group with Todd Boehly as the outward facing negotiator has been busier and more active in the market than any other owner to memory, but has still only completed two senior signings, though deals for Gabriel Slonina and Carney Chukwuemeka indicate some sense of long-term planning as well.
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Chelsea face Everton on Saturday though and have a tricky start to the Premier League season, hence Tuchel's desire to have new faces in the squad early as he juggles with squad issues, contract logistics and on-field management.
That has led him down the route of experience, favouring that over the risk and time consuming path of developing Chelsea's own younger players, which raises its own questions. But Tuchel has already shown that when given the right tools, he can create innovative ways to be successful.
This is why his interest in Aubameyang makes sense. Chelsea themselves held serious interest in the player during his time at Borussia Dortmund and Tuchel was his manager at the time. The former Arsenal striker scored 56 goals in 61 league matches under the German in a successful spell.
As Tuchel looks for a short-term answer to his goalscoring problems, with Kai Havertz and Armando Broja only scoring 14 goals between them last term, Aubameyang is the image of a proven goalscorer. In his time at Arsenal he scored 92 times in 163 matches with a strike rate of more than one in every two league games as well.
His tally of 22 league goals in 2018/19 is more than any Chelsea striker has managed since Didier Drogba in 2010 and is the second highest total reached by any player managed by Tuchel for a full season.
This has kept Tuchel keen on the player and the manager has spoken glowingly about him several times since coming to Chelsea, saying in December: "I will, I will at some point. [contact Aubameyang] But, you know, I don’t want to also disturb [him].
"I think he was a very important player for me and we had a very close relationship until today. When we meet it’s still always very, very nice. I can only say the best things about Auba as a player and as a person. I feel sorry for him that he’s in trouble. This is not where he should be with his kind of quality and the positive character that he has – and I still believe in that.
"But I’m not involved, and I’m not involved in what’s going on at his club now, and for this I also want to show my respect [to Arsenal] and not be involved and not judge what is right and wrong."
The Blues have been desperately short of consistent goals since Tammy Abraham's first full season at the club and their failed forwards over the years have created a stockpile of underperforming talent. The way that Tuchel has spoken of Aubameyang does hint that the club's long-term attraction to the Gabon forward could be translated into a short-term deal this summer.
Speaking about their time at Dortmund together, Tuchel has previously said: "He does not get younger, that’s the problem. [in trying to sign him]
"Back in the days at Dortmund, it was a pure pleasure to have him in the squad. Auba was a fantastic striker, a fantastic finisher on the pitch. But more than that, he was a fantastic worker off the pitch. I think he did not miss one single training in two years.
"Maybe he arrived five minutes late on the training ground, that can happen with him! But if he does this, he is in a hurry, he excuses, he feels sorry, he has still a smile on his face. When we wanted him to be on time, we told him the meeting was 10.45am when the meeting was 11am so there was a good chance he would be there with everyone else.
"It’s not the biggest problem. But don’t forget that he was also a top, top professional who never missed any training session. It was a pleasure to work with him, always a smile on his face, very, very honest guy.
"A bit of a crazy guy, but this is nice crazy. We still are in touch from time to time and exchange messages when some of us has a big win. In some way, he will still always be my player and feels like he will always be my player, so you want him to succeed and have a good time wherever they are.
"This contact never fully stopped and it’s nice to see him because he’s always on for a hug and it’s nice to see him laugh, but, of course, we want to stop him and there is no exchange now before the games. It’s not the first time we played against the guy we trained so nothing special there. I just have my picture and my relationship with Auba and this is not affected by that."
Tuchel is an extremely disciplined manager and has already had issues at Paris Saint-Germain and more at Chelsea with Romelu Lukaku, but the energy that he brings from the sideline is often infectious for his team and if he could channel that into Aubameyang then he might just have a new answer.
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