How Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang raced to 50 Premier League goals : Gunners
Tried to summarize as much as I can
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has reached 50 Premier League goals — and much like everything the forward does, he’s done it at remarkable speed. His double against Norwich City on Wednesday took him to 51. The man with “Fast Life” tattooed on his forearms arrived at 50 goals in just 79 league appearances. That’s two games sooner than Sergio Aguero — and four ahead of Arsenal’s record scorer Thierry Henry. Henry finished up on 0.67 goals per league game for the club, but Aubameyang is practically level on 0.65. This is goalscoring at a breathtaking, breakneck pace.
Aubameyang scored his 98 Bundesliga goals for Dortmund in 144 games ,a strikingly similar rate of 0.68 goals per game. He may be the wrong side of 30, but he shows little sign of slowing down.In fact, Aubameyang is the fastest to reach the milestone in Arsenal’s modern history, Henry took 83 games to get there and Ian Wright took 87. Alexis Sanchez (101) and Robin van Persie (142) aren’t even close. To have managed it playing in an Arsenal team enduring their worst league season for more than two decades makes it all the more impressive.
Aubameyang doesn’t just score goals — he scores crucial goals. At times, it has felt like he has been carrying Arsenal, and the numbers bear that out.
Mohamed Salah
21
Mouth Breather
15
Auba
14
Sadio Mane
13
Roberto Firmino
12
Marcus Rashford
11
Although Salah has more “winners”, most of these came in comfortable Liverpool victories . Without Aubas goals, Arsenal would have earned considerably fewer points.
There is a perception Aubameyang has spent this whole season playing off the left flank, but the reality is rather different.
Lone striker 41.7%
Striker in a 2 23.9%
Left 28.4%
Right 5.9%
Centre-forward
PL appearances 45
goals 30
Goals per game 0.66
Left side
PL appearances 24
goals 19
Goals per game 0.79
Right side
PL appearances 8
goals 2
Goals per game 0.25
The figures suggest Aubas goal scoring rate is better when playing from the left flank than through the middle.
Chemistry on and off the pitch
When Auba signed, it was expected he would displace Lacazette in Arsenal’s starting XI**.** However, they managed to build a rapport on and off the pitch. Despite his poor form of late, no player has created more of Aubameyang’s Premier League goals than the Frenchman.
Lacazette
6
Ramsey
4
Bellerin
3
Kolasinac
3
Mkhitaryan
3
Maitland-Niles
2
Pepe
2
Newfound aerial threat
Up to December 29, Aubameyang had never scored a headed goal for Arsenal**.** From that date, he scored three in six Premier League games.
Of Aubameyang’s first 10 headed opportunities this season, eight went off target. Now he’s not only tested the goalkeeper, but has beaten him with three of his last four headers on goal.
Some of that can be attributed to Nicolas Pepe, whose crossing from the right has improved considerably in Arsenal’s more recent games. Arsenal’s attacking shape enables Pepe to send inswinging crosses from the right towards the far post, where Aubameyang can ghost into the inside left channel. That’s precisely how Aubameyang’s February goals against Newcastle and Everton came about.
78 per cent of the 51 goals have come off his preferred right boot**.**
Penalty box poacher
Aubameyang arrived with a reputation as an outstanding penalty-box striker, 97 of his 98 Bundesliga goals for Dortmund were scored from within the area.
When he bent home a curled effort against Cardiff from 25 yards in September 2018, it ended a run of 76 straight Aubameyang goals in all competitions from within the confines of the 18-yard box. It was his first long-range strike for two and a half years. At Arsenal, he’s scored four times from outside the box, including a direct free kick against Aston Villa this season. Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, once said of Aubameyang’s unusual technique, “If I tried to hit a free kick like Auba, I’d break my foot.”
Second-half striker
Under Emery and now Arteta, Arsenal have struggled to maintain performances for the full 90 minutes. They’ve often appeared to be slow starters, and Aubameyang’s spread of goals reflects that.
He’s most dangerous in the half an hour between the start of the second half and the 75th minute, scoring a massive 53 per cent of his goals in that half-hour period.
