Mikel Arteta has made clear that Arsenal will do everything to keep Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang at the Emirates. The Gabon striker will see his contract with the Gunners expire next year, but the team manager gave an assurance that he is working hard to convince the skipper to stay despite offers from big clubs.
According to the Spanish boss, he will make sure Aubameyang will start negotiating with Arsenal executives on the matter of contract extension amid the speculations that the team captain has already rejected similar offers in the past. Before the end of the season, Arteta said he will be discussing things with the striker.
"For me it is very easy ... I want to keep him under any circumstances," BBC reported the Gunners boss as saying.
Arteta, however, admitted that Aubameyang remaining will greatly depend on where Arsenal will be in the upcoming season. He said it will be hard for the club to sell a contract extension to a player who is looking to see action in the Champions League, which for Arsenal seems a remote reality at the moment.
Presently, Arteta's side is at No. 10 in the Premier League table, and the chance is higher than Arsenal will miss out on the UCL competition again, which will be three consecutive seasons for the club.
"We will see the intentions that we have and his intentions ... Where we are sitting in the table at that moment. I think it is difficult to predict that context right now," Arteta said.
He added, though, that the priority, for now, is to make Aubameyang happy heading to a sit-down session with the striker, who boasts of 20 goals in the season, before the end of the current term.
As the rumors persist that the Gunners captain is being pursued by Barcelona and Inter Milan, former Arsenal defender Martin Keown has suggested that Arteta ought to be careful in his deal talks with Aubameyang lest the club will repeat the mistake made with Mesut Ozil.
Per Metro, the German playmaker managed to secure a lucrative deal with Arsenal, which reportedly pays him a wage of £350,000 per week, that proved disadvantageous now to the club. It was an 11th-hour deal, and Keown warned, Arteta could make the same mistake for both Aubameyang and Alexander Lacazette.
Keown said it's understandable that Arsenal will want to keep great talents "but they don't want to be held to ransom either."
Instead, it might be wiser for Arteta to entertain the possibility of offloading Aubameyang and Alexander, which Keown said might be easier to do now than at a later time. The Arsenal hero is citing the example of Ozil, who is proving hard to sell due to his expensive salary.
