Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s media war could play into Arsenal’s hands

Even a decade after he left to join Milan as a 17-year-old apprentice, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang still regards the picturesque medieval town of Laval in western France as his home. Last summer the Borussia Dortmund forward, who could replace Alexis Sánchez at Arsenal, had just beaten Robert Lewandowski to finish as the Bundesliga’s top scorer with 31 goals when he was spotted wearing a shirt he had exchanged with Antoine Griezmann as he played a game of five-a-side with his friends in the Park de Saint-Berthevin.

“It allows me to maintain my shape,” he explained. “Every time I leave Laval, I feel really good, my body is rested. I’m going back to Dortmund full of energy.”

Less than six months and two club suspensions later, Aubameyang’s future at the Westfalenstadion is in serious doubt, with Dortmund apparently ready to allow the player who has scored 98 goals in fewer than 150 appearances since arriving from Saint-Étienne in 2013 to leave. How has it come to this?

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Sunday’s events appear to hold the key. Speaking on the German magazine Kicker’s TV channel, chief writer Karlheinz Wild used the term “Affenzirkus” to describe what has been going on with the Gabon striker at Dortmund and questioned whether he would be able to act in the same way at Bayern Munich. In response, Aubameyang posted on Instagram a screengrab of a Google search for the word, which translates loosely as “monkey circus”, and generated among its results an image of an ape wearing a swastika armband and giving a Nazi salute.

“These days German journalists are attacking me, while remaining correct until today,” he wrote. “I think this reporter could have used another word … on the right side of the picture, that is when I tap on Google [for] affenzirkus . I leave you to judge!!”

Wild apologised, while it then emerged Aubameyang had skipped a team meeting the previous evening and he was suspended for the third time in just over a year, having been disciplined in November 2016 over “internal issues” and again in November last year for repeatedly missing training sessions. His close friendship with Ousmane Dembélé, who joined Barcelona for an initial £97m after a fractious period in which the France forward was also suspended, has not helped his cause.

Yet having tried and failed to sell the 28-year-old in the summer for £63m to Real Madrid, Barcelona, Paris Saint-Germain or Manchester City, the enormous fee Dortmund received for Dembélé persuaded the chief executive, Hans-Joachim Watzke, to offer Aubameyang a one-year extension to his contract. That was revealed only at the end of December, when he posted a message on Twitter accompanied by a picture of himself wearing headphones and the message: “Let me listen to music, it’s better than the newspapers! It’s a bit of time since I extended my contract. But it’s not your fault, you didn’t know. Just like usual.”

Aubameyang once enjoyed a close relationship with some members of the German press but, having been warned by Dortmund about speaking out on his future, that has steadily deteriorated over the past 18 months.

The response of his father, Pierre, to Wild’s comments, in an Instagram post that has now been deleted, was an indication of the level of antipathy that has been brewing for some time. “A shitty journalist who treats my son like a monkey,” he wrote. “I feel he wants to take us back to Hitler’s time. I just think the little monkey and his family have to leave here because at least this small class newspaper will be quiet to know we are no longer at home.”

With Chinese clubs now subject to 100% tax rates on purchasing foreign players – a rule that means Beijing Guoan must pay nearly £66m for Cédric Bakambu of Villarreal – Arsenal’s interest in Aubameyang could not be more timely. Unlike with Sánchez, however, a long-term contract that expires in 2021 means Arsène Wenger will have to offer a significant sum.

It remains unclear if Dortmund are willing to sell this month given the lack of time to secure a replacement. The 18-year-old striker Alexander Isak replaced Aubameyang for Sunday’s stalemate with Wolfsburg and the 17-year-old English prospect Jadon Sancho was also handed his full Bundesliga debut by the manager, Peter Stöger. There are also doubts about the long-term fitness of Marco Reus, who has yet to play this season because of a knee injury.

For their part, Arsenal are understood to be unconcerned about Aubameyang’s disciplinary record despite reports to the contrary. Wenger is likely to have been influenced to press ahead with the transfer by the club’s new head of recruitment, Sven Mislintat. The German was responsible for helping to sign Aubameyang from Saint-Étienne.

Tottenham offered Aubameyang the opportunity to move to the Premier League in 2012 but he rejected their approach and later described it as “weird. I didn’t really like the way things were done. If Spurs ever came back in for me, I’d say no.”

That, and if he can come close to matching his phenomenal Dortmund goalscoring record, should ensure immediate hero status in the red half of north London at least.