Looking at the dictionary under “unpredictable”, this season you risk finding a nice photo of Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal. The Gunners are unable to find a minimum of continuity and alternate fairly convincing victories with defeats that make the fans drop their arms. Before the FA Cup match against Southampton, the Londoners were back from six positive results between the Premier League and cups, but when it was time to face the Saints they went down in the middle of the first half and were unable to recover the situation. Yet what worries most at the moment is not a problem on the pitch, but a situation involving what is perhaps the best player on the team.
PROBLEM – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did not take part in the match against Southampton. For him, no injuries or technical choices, but an unspecified “personal problem”. Something that, as the Sun, forced him to run home despite having left with the team for St Mary’s Stadium. A situation that Arteta spoke about at the press conference, but without going into details. “He had a personal problem in the last few hours and we had to send him home,” explained the Gunners’ coach. Who, when asked about the timing of the absence of the center forward, answered with unexpected sincerity: “I don’t know”.
ARSENAL – “He has to face this problem, we will see how the situation evolves. We are here for him, we have to support him and he needs to take all the time he needs because we are talking about something that has priority at the moment ”. A big problem for the player, who obviously has more important things to think about than football, but also for the Gunners. Above all because in the last few matches the attacker seemed to have found a certain feeling with the goal after a complicated period from the point of view of realization. And certainly not exactly what Arteta needed, who at the end of the first round finds himself in the middle of the table, with eight wins, as many defeats and three draws. And if he were to lose his star indefinitely, things would not turn out well at all.
