wicked.football

Former Newcastle and Manchester City goalkeeper Shay Given has stated his belief that it’s down to Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta to get Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang back to his best.

The Gabon international is struggling right now, having gone six games without a goal for the Gunners, and, in truth, he didn’t look at his best for a lot of last season either, so there’s bound to be legitimate concern about whether or not he can ever get back to his best.

Given, however, thinks Aubameyang is still a quality player who could recover from this bad patch, and just thinks it’s the manager’s job to coax that improvement out of him.

The former Republic of Ireland international, speaking exclusively to Ladbrokes at its launch of the 5-A-Side Bet on Leicester v Newcastle, said: “Any top striker in world football will tell you that confidence is a big part of the game. If you’re not confident, you’re not scoring, and it’s a difficult thing to rediscover. Sometimes things just don’t go your way and you’re just praying for a lucky break of some sort to get the ball rolling again.

“You got two or three games without scoring and all of the sudden everyone picks up on it. People start saying ‘he’s not scored for x amount of minutes’… they say minutes instead of games to make it sound longer than it is.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s form is a real worry

“Aubameyang is a brilliant striker and I’ve no doubt he’ll come back around again. All great strikers take a dip in form. Mikel Arteta’s job is to get him back firing again.

“Aubameyang is the club captain; he needs to lead that team through this difficult time, and the best way to do that is by scoring goals.”

Arsenal fans will no doubt hope they can see the old Aubameyang again soon, but many will have doubts about Arteta’s ability to get him back to his best.

The Spanish tactician isn’t doing a particularly convincing job as AFC manager, and it might be that a change in the dugout would be the best thing for Aubameyang right now.

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