Aubameyang excluded from Arsenal’s Dubai training camp
The 32-year-old has been training on his own since being dropped by Arteta, nearly seven weeks ago,
Former Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will not travel to Dubai with the Arsenal squad for a training camp on Thursday as the club weigh up the striker’s future.
The 32-year-old forward has been training on his own since being dropped by the Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, nearly seven weeks ago, and has been assessing his options after it became apparent that the club wanted to offload him.
He has been offered to Seville and Barcelona and was linked to Juventus, but they have now agreed a £62.7 million deal to sign Dusan Vlahovic, the 21-year-old forward wanted by Arsenal.
None of the clubs interested are prepared to meet Aubameyang’s full wage of £300,000 a week in a contract that runs until the end of next season.
Aubameyang has said that he was given the all clear in a health check after returning from the Africa Cup of Nations, where he had been released early by Gabon due to a scan showing “cardiac lesions”.
He did not make the Arsenal squad for the 0-0 draw at home to Burnley on Sunday when seven players aged 22 or under were named on the bench.
Aubameyang has now missed 11 successive matches for Arsenal in all competitions. He was dropped before the 3-0 win over Southampton in December after returning late from a visit to see his mother, who had been ill, in France.
He was then stripped of the captaincy as a result of multiple disciplinary issues, having also been dropped before a 2-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur in March last season, when he arrived late for a team meeting before the game.
On Sunday Arteta could not say whether Aubameyang would join the camp before the manager travelled to the United States to meet Stan Kroenke, the club’s owner. Arteta and Kroenke have not often been able to see each other face to face during Arteta’s time in charge due to Covid-related travel restrictions. '
They went to watch Kroenke’s Colorado Avalanche against Chicago Blackhawks in the National Hockey League in Denver on Monday night.
Arteta has clashed with several players in his 25 months in charge, including Mesut Özil and Mattéo Guendouzi, who was dropped after a disagreement with his manager during a Dubai training camp in February 2020.
They patched up their differences when the season was put on hold during the first coronavirus lockdown but the wound reopened when Guendouzi was involved in a fracas that followed a defeat away to Brighton & Hove Albion when the season restarted.
He has not played for Arsenal since, spending last season on loan at Hertha Berlin in the Bundesliga and this season on loan with Marseilles in Ligue 1.
Arteta was also unhappy with Granit Xhaka for his ill-discipline on the pitch, but the midfielder was reintegrated into the squad after a proposed deal with Roma collapsed in the summer.
