Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang claimed he had “unfinished business” when returning to the Premier League with Chelsea in September. And yet, barely five months later, he now needs to prove he is not finished as a player at the highest level.
Since arriving in a €12 million deal from Barcelona, the former Arsenal striker — who left the Emirates on a free transfer in February 2022 after a deterioration in his relationship with manager Mikel Arteta — has scored three goals in 17 appearances. He started only four Premier League games in that time and after ninth-placed Chelsea splashed out more than €350m on eight new signings in January, Aubameyang’s rapidly diminishing status was underlined by his deregistration from the club’s Champions League squad as manager Graham Potter opted to add three of the new additions: Enzo Fernandez, Mykhailo Mudryk and Joao Felix, the latter two acquired to reshape the team’s attack.
With Chelsea opting to play Kai Havertz up front, it is difficult to see a way back for the 33-year-old Aubameyang. So much so that reported enquiries from the LAFC over a move to MLS could potentially carry some appeal — the alternative is another four months in the wilderness at Stamford Bridge with no guarantee of a summer transfer to a major European club.
FIFA regulations stipulate a player cannot represent three different clubs in the same season, which meant speculation about a January return to Spain was always a non-starter. This included a rumoured switch back to Barcelona, when LaLiga officials made it clear to the Catalan club that re-registering Aubameyang would not be sanctioned.
MLS is about to kick-off its 2023 season, meaning Aubameyang could theoretically move to Los Angeles if his Chelsea contract was torn up. But how did it come to this for a player who scored 141 goals in 213 games for Borussia Dortmund, as well as 92 goals in 163 games for Arsenal, and was once considered one of the best strikers in Europe?
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Many would start the story with the departure of Thomas Tuchel as Chelsea head coach. Tuchel was sacked less than a week after Aubameyang arrived, denying the striker a proper reunion with the manager under whom he scored 79 goals in 95 appearances at Dortmund.
Tuchel memorably offered a public defence of Aubameyang’s character when he was stripped of the Arsenal captaincy for disciplinary issues in December 2021, revealing they were still in regular contact, and so the chance to reignite that relationship at Stamford Bridge palpably appealed to both. As it turns out, the pair had just one game together — an ignominious 1-0 defeat to Dinamo Zagreb — before Tuchel left on Sept. 7.
Chelsea face Dortmund next Wednesday in their Champions League round of 16, first-leg clash and instead of plotting against their former club, Tuchel is now unemployed and Aubameyang will watch the game from afar.
It was widely suggested that Tuchel helped convince Chelsea to sign Aubameyang. But in the immediate aftermath of Tuchel’s exit, senior team sources told ESPN that the dynamic had been “misreported” and he was in fact a club signing, compatible with “the philosophy, character [and] style of football the club wants to play.” If that can be taken at face value — and there are surely doubts given Aubameyang hardly fits the profile of young, progressive talents, signed to long-term contracts, that Chelsea have aggressively pursued of late — then the club must take a degree of responsibility for what has happened since. After all, there have not been the same behavioural problems that characterised the end of the striker’s time at Arsenal.
