Borussia Dortmund yesterday challenged Arsenal to raise their bid for the unsettled Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and signalled that unless an asking price of close to £60m is met, they and the player will patch up a fractured relationship and he will return his focus to his Dortmund career until at least the summer.
The Bundesliga club backed up their firm position by picking Aubameyang in their starting line-up yesterday against Freiburg, after two weeks outside the matchday squad and several days in which the club had been negotiating his possible sale.
Shortly after Aubameyang was named in the XI for the 2-2 draw against Freiburg, Dortmund’s director of football Michael Zorc told Sky Sports Germany: “We are aware of the transfer interest, but we have a clear position. The transfer will happen only if our bar is reached. Arsenal have come to us more than once but we have rejected everything. At the moment I cannot say where it goes.” Arsenal’s highest bid is believed to have been around £50m for the 28-year-old, the Bundesliga’s leading goalscorer last season.
Zorc added he felt confident that Aubameyang accepted his employer’s position, and Dortmund’s readiness to keep him at the club until June, or beyond. “We have had good discussions with the [player’s] family and he was in the team today because he has trained well in the week,” said Zorc.
Aubameyang’s selection in the XI for a see-saw draw, in which Dortmund led, fell behind and gained their point very late, had surprised some supporters at the Westfalen stadium the striker has called home for the last four and a half years, although it was known he would be in the squad. A banner was prepared and stretched out behind the goal, with a message aimed at the Gabonese striker: “No player is bigger than our club,” it read.
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Aubameyang has had periods of tension with those fans and with the club’s executives since he joined from Saint-Etienne in 2013. He has been fined and suspended twice for unauthorised absences and had a restless summer last year, indicating his interest in possible moves to Paris St-Germain and the lucrative Chinese League. Zorc yesterday also referenced the club’s steadfast position in negotiations over Aubameyang with Barcelona, to whom Dortmund sold the winger Ousmane Dembele for an initial £98m in August after the departure of Neymar from Barcelona to PSG for a world-record £198m. “Our position now is the same as it was with Barcelona in the summer,” he warned Arsenal, who identified Aubameyang as the most suitable, accessible replacement for Alexis Sanchez in the current transfer window.
At the Westfalen, from where a series of popular players have departed in the last five years — such as Mario Gotze, Robert Lewandowski and Mats Hummels all to Bayern Munich; and Shinji Kagawa and Henrikh Mhkitaryan to Manchester United — Aubameyang may have tested the patience of some, but his stellar contributions are also appreciated and reflected in the club’s financial valuation of him. He was initially hired to support, with his exceptional pace, the totemic Lewandowski, and soon enough was filling the gap left by Lewandowski’s shift to Munich. The French-born forward has registered 140-odd goals for Dortmund in a little over 200 appearances, figures that elevate him to the very upper strata of modern strikers. He was the Bundesliga’s Footballer of the Year in 2015-16, and its leading scorer in 2016-17. He started 31 matches and scored 31 goals.
Arsenal, despite the lack of guarantees about Champions League participation next season, are a preferred destination for Aubameyang partly, it is understood, because of the manager Arsène Wenger, who is well respected by Pierre Aubameyang, the player’s father, a former professional in the French league and Gabon international in the 1980s and 1990s.
