Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: From Thriller To Bad, Should He Just Beat It?

[dka1]

Fan opinion is heavily considered on nearly every decision a club makes. You only have to look at the reversed decisions last summer to seek Government furlough schemes by clubs for proof of that.

That's true but the furlough scheme (which mind you would affect the livelihood of all of the staff at a club) and signing on a player are two very different things.

If they didn’t extend Auba or Özil’s contracts the club would’ve been treated to a huge and irreparable backlash by the fans. The board have to try to please the fans, the customers. Therefore, a risk assessment would have weighed heavily against not giving those contracts.

Irreparable backlash? I really don't think so. Backlash perhaps, not irreparable though, that's hyperbole.

I think if we sold Aubameyang and showed a plan to replacing him (long or short term) that made sense to fans we'd stomach it.

I mean take the Martinez and Leno scenario, there was a lot of talk about Martinez but it's died down quite a bit as Leno has started to perform very well; the end result matters the most in football.

As for the risk assessment part that sounds like made up fluff with all due respect.

I mean how do you know what goes into risk assessment and which factors are weighed more heavily against others?

And again I'm not arguing about which factors the club used in coming to the decision, you keep making this point and I'm telling you I don't care or it doesn't matter here.

I'm arguing about what should be important in decision making when it comes to players. The execs plans for long "success" (given the information they have) should take precedent.

What we do know for a fact is that winning and results on the field are the most important things in football.

The decisions made about signing on a player should be mostly based on that (of course within the make up of a plan).

Therefore blaming the fans isn't something that should be done when it comes to decisions like that.

 

[Jack_the_boy]

That's true but the furlough scheme (which mind you would affect the livelihood of all of the staff at a club) and signing on a player are two very different things.



Irreparable backlash? I really don't think so. Backlash perhaps, not irreparable though, that's hyperbole.

I think if we sold Aubameyang and showed a plan to replacing him (long or short term) that made sense to fans we'd stomach it.

I mean take the Martinez and Leno scenario, there was a lot of talk about Martinez but it's died down quite a bit as Leno has started to perform very well; the end result matters the most in football.

As for the risk assessment part that sounds like made up fluff with all due respect.

I mean how do you know what goes into risk assessment and which factors are weighed more heavily against others?

And again I'm not arguing about which factors the club used in coming to the decision, you keep making this point and I'm telling you I don't care or it doesn't matter here.

I'm arguing about what should be important in decision making when it comes to players. The execs plans for long "success" (given the information they have) should take precedent.

What we do know for a fact is that winning and results on the field are the most important things in football.

The decisions made about signing on a player should be mostly based on that (of course within the make up of a plan).

Therefore blaming the fans isn't something that should be done when it comes to decisions like that.

You’re judging their decisions in hindsight. At the time the public opinion was that they did well to sign Özil and Auba (at their respective time) to the new deals. They can’t predict the future. They can only learn from mistakes. In equal measure, there is a lot for the fans to learn too, and unlike you I do not expect executives to make decisions that go heavily against fan opinion. They have to please customers, not anger them.

At the time of Auba’s signing I thought it was a mistake to repeat the Özil mistake of giving such a huge lucrative deal to the player. But I’m not making the decision. If I was making the decision I’d probably have seen no choice but to do what they did, because it’s what the fans wanted. Another factor was the special circumstances in the fact that it was a common held view that to replace Aubameyang’s goals would have been really expensive, and near impossible in the covid market.

 

[dka1]

You’re judging their decisions in hindsight. At the time the public opinion was that they did well to sign Özil and Auba (at their respective time) to the new deals. They can’t predict the future. They can only learn from mistakes. In equal measure, there is a lot for the fans to learn too, and unlike you I do not expect executives to make decisions that go heavily against fan opinion. They have to please customers, not anger them.

No I'm not, did I ever say either decision was bad? No I didn't.

You never asked me what I thought about either decision and in this conversation it does not matter.

Whether they were a success or not, football execs' decisions should be heavily based on making the informed choice not buckling to fan pressure.

At the time of Auba’s signing I thought it was a mistake to repeat the Özil mistake of giving such a huge lucrative deal to the player. But I’m not making the decision. If I was making the decision I’d probably have seen no choice but to do what they did, because it’s what the fans wanted. Another factor was the special circumstances in the fact that it was a common held view that to replace Aubameyang’s goals would have been really expensive, and near impossible in the covid market.

Fair enough, that's a very reasonable line of thinking.

For the matter I don't think it was a bad decision per say, I'm talking about Aubameyang only btw.

To quote my homie Headie One "it was a sticky one still". Either way could've worked out badly (or worked out well, we don't really know for sure yet, it's still a little too early).

Not having to replace an already firing player that had hardly been injured and wasn't really slowing down in scoring (and didn't show the sort of inconsistency Özil did at times) on the face of it is not a bad choice at all.

Likewise selling him and getting a targeted and well thought out replacement to rebuild is or would've been a good idea.

What I'm trying to say is that these guys are paid the money to make the right choice or rather the most informed choice, given the resources available to them.

Given this you can't turn round and say "fans are partly to blame", well not really, the people at the club are the ones that should be making the choice based on their resources, not based on how the fans feel.

 

[Jack_the_boy]

No I'm not, did I ever say either decision was bad? No I didn't.

You never asked me what I thought about either decision and in this conversation it does not matter.

Whether they were a success or not, football execs' decisions should be heavily based on making the informed choice not buckling to fan pressure.



Fair enough, that's a very reasonable line of thinking.

For the matter I don't think it was a bad decision per say, I'm talking about Aubameyang only btw.

To quote my homie Headie One "it was a sticky one still". Either way could've worked out badly (or worked out well, we don't really know for sure yet, it's still a little too early).

Not having to replace an already firing player that had hardly been injured and wasn't really slowing down in scoring (and didn't show the sort of inconsistency Özil did at times) on the face of it is not a bad choice at all.

Likewise selling him and getting a targeted and well thought out replacement to rebuild is or would've been a good idea.

What I'm trying to say is that these guys are paid the money to make the right choice or rather the most informed choice, given the resources available to them.

Given this you can't turn round and say "fans are partly to blame", well not really, the people at the club are the ones that should be making the choice based on their resources, not based on how the fans feel.

They are required to consider and factor in fan opinion when making decisions, including extending contracts. Failure to do that is them failing at their job. There are people whose specific jobs is to gather intelligence on fan or public opinions on matters and relay that information to superiors. In the matter of Özil and Aubameyang’s contracts, fan opinion was too heavy on the side of demands for them to renew. They had the resources to do it. Those making the decisions therefore had to do what they did.
Just because you think that public opinion shouldn’t be a factor in decisions doesn’t make it so. Every big club uses public opinion as a factor (but still one of many factors) in decision making and not doing so would be a huge error and lapse of judgement.

 

[OnlyOne]

@Sweet'n'Soulful

Mo-hawked Willian.

 

[Sweet'n'Soulful]

@Sweet'n'Soulful

Mo-hawked Willian.

The stuff of nightmares... He's got a head like a pear drop.

 

[dka1]

They are required to consider and factor in fan opinion when making decisions, including extending contracts. Failure to do that is them failing at their job. There are people whose specific jobs is to gather intelligence on fan or public opinions on matters and relay that information to superiors. In the matter of Özil and Aubameyang’s contracts, fan opinion was too heavy on the side of demands for them to renew. Those making the decisions therefore had to do what they did. Just because you think that public opinion shouldn’t be a factor in decisions doesn’t make it so. Every big club uses public opinion as a factor (but still one of many factors) in decision making and not doing so would be a huge error.

I mean seriously? This sounds like a load of fluff and conjecture.

I honestly can't believe you're trying to say that public opinion should count as much as the information (especially the stats and metrics) available to those at the club and the plan they have, to the point that "fans are partly to blame" if things do go wrong.

They should have an actual reason for the player decisions they are making, that should be based again on a plan that means we can "do better" or improve in the future.

I'll give an example;

So we let go of quite a few scouting staff not so long ago, which caused a quite a rumble both in the Arsenal community and in the football world in general.

Cool, whether or not it was right or wrong doesn't matter in this context.

What matters is that Edu said that his reasoning for this was that he wanted to work with "less people" but " I want them to be very close to me. I want to create a group of people working together".

From that we can gather he wants a more streamlined process where he can be closer to the scouts, I picked the quotes from here:

https://www.ibtimes.com/arsenals-ed...scouting-team-i-want-work-less-people-3044063

Ok, so he has a reason perhaps I don't fully trust him but he does have what I'm assuming is a legitimate reason with a plan to go with it.

If Edu then re-hired those 55 scouts (or hired 55 scouts to replace the ones he fired) with fan opinion being a massive factor in doing that, but it turned out that our scouting network WAS actually bloated and re-hiring the scouts was a bad decision then would the fans be partly to blame?

Nope, in fact Edu would be an idiot to re-hire the scouts if everything available to him pointed that streamlining is more beneficial, even if people don't understand.

If our recruitment suddenly becomes way better and we hear reports of a super efficient process then who deserves the praise? Well Edu of course.

 

[Jack_the_boy]

I mean seriously? This sounds like a load of fluff and conjecture.

I honestly can't believe you're trying to say that public opinion should count as much as the information (especially the stats and metrics) available to those at the club and the plan they have, to the point that "fans are partly to blame" if things do go wrong.

They should have an actual reason for the player decisions they are making, that should be based again on a plan that means we can "do better" or improve in the future.

I'll give an example;

So we let go of quite a few scouting staff not so long ago, which caused a quite a rumble both in the Arsenal community and in the football world in general.

Cool, whether or not it was right or wrong doesn't matter in this context.

What matters is that Edu said that his reasoning for this was that he wanted to work with "less people" but " I want them to be very close to me. I want to create a group of people working together".

From that we can gather he wants a more streamlined process where he can be closer to the scouts, I picked the quotes from here:

https://www.ibtimes.com/arsenals-ed...scouting-team-i-want-work-less-people-3044063

Ok, so he has a reason perhaps I don't fully trust him but he does have what I'm assuming is a legitimate reason with a plan to go with it.

If Edu then re-hired those 55 scouts (or hired 55 scouts to replace the ones he fired) with fan opinion being a massive factor in doing that, but it turned out that our scouting network WAS actually bloated and re-hiring the scouts was a bad decision then would the fans be partly to blame?

Nope, in fact Edu would be an idiot to re-hire the scouts if everything available to him pointed that streamlining is more beneficial, even if people don't understand.

If our recruitment suddenly becomes way better and we hear reports of a super efficient process then who deserves the praise? Well Edu of course.

It’s not conjecture. There are people in PR departments who do that for their job, or part of it. Public opinion is a large part of public relations.

Public opinion on players usually goes hand in hand with talent, but it’s not always the case. Popularity also decides other things that executives desire such as merchandise sales, and attracting fans... anything that results in an increase in revenue. Heck, David Beckham used to get signed almost exclusively for commercial value.

I didn’t make any suggestion that public opinion is the only factor in decision making, only that it is highly considered. Originally you were making the argument that it had no bearing on Auba’s contract signing at all, and you said I made a ridiculous statement for suggesting it.

The decision to sack staff was not popular, but sadly such staff aren’t assets (like players), they’re commodities, and it was judged that despite a minor backlash, their sacking wasn’t going to negatively impact the bottom line in any way.

 

[Rasmi]

I mean seriously? This sounds like a load of fluff and conjecture.

I honestly can't believe you're trying to say that public opinion should count as much as the information (especially the stats and metrics) available to those at the club and the plan they have, to the point that "fans are partly to blame" if things do go wrong.

They should have an actual reason for the player decisions they are making, that should be based again on a plan that means we can "do better" or improve in the future.

I'll give an example;

So we let go of quite a few scouting staff not so long ago, which caused a quite a rumble both in the Arsenal community and in the football world in general.

Cool, whether or not it was right or wrong doesn't matter in this context.

What matters is that Edu said that his reasoning for this was that he wanted to work with "less people" but " I want them to be very close to me. I want to create a group of people working together".

From that we can gather he wants a more streamlined process where he can be closer to the scouts, I picked the quotes from here:

https://www.ibtimes.com/arsenals-ed...scouting-team-i-want-work-less-people-3044063

Ok, so he has a reason perhaps I don't fully trust him but he does have what I'm assuming is a legitimate reason with a plan to go with it.

If Edu then re-hired those 55 scouts (or hired 55 scouts to replace the ones he fired) with fan opinion being a massive factor in doing that, but it turned out that our scouting network WAS actually bloated and re-hiring the scouts was a bad decision then would the fans be partly to blame?

Nope, in fact Edu would be an idiot to re-hire the scouts if everything available to him pointed that streamlining is more beneficial, even if people don't understand.

If our recruitment suddenly becomes way better and we hear reports of a super efficient process then who deserves the praise? Well Edu of course.

Its a way to throw it back on the fans. Our opinion changes based on performance. if they really really listened to us we would have 5 new players and sell players atleast each window. If these people are as intelligent as its claimed, they know fans will back you selling anyone as long as they see result. And you can do everything we say if we dont see result we want out. so you would think we would have strong enough people to back their judgement and stand on it.

As far as Edu saying he wants smaller team, it sounds good. But he is lying. He is clearing the people he thinks can be problem for Kia. Edu relies on one man and thats his master kia and I expect most of our signings will have connection with kia one way or another

 

[Taneruit]

Semi-Random Thing I learnt today by watching youtube videos:

@Tir Na Nog calling Aubameyang Gervinho 2.0

 

[Macho]

Fwiw, it’s easier to extend Aubameyang than trust our scouting/contacts to find a 20 something year old version surely?

 

[OnlyOne]

Fwiw, it’s easier to extend Aubameyang than trust our scouting/contacts to find a 20 something year old version surely?

Extending Auba was the right call.

 

[Arsenal1508]

Extending Auba was the right call.

Yes, but not if it meant giving a raise to someone already making 180K per week. I'm sorry, but what did PEA justify to command 350K per week? Not even KDB, Salah, or Mane make that.

Who are we offending if we had putting in performance goals in PEA contract? Only PEA. We could have spun it in the media that we are prepared to make PEA highest paid player, but it will mean only if he continues to deliver. If he doesn't deliver, we should have protected ourselves. If PEA didn't like those terms, then we should have sprouted it in the media - our muppet supporters like those in AFTV would have understood and there would not be any pressure.

We should have stuck to our guns and just extended his contract to 3 more years at the same rate - why the fook did we need to double his wages?

Who were we bidding against? I'm sorry, but I'm not the only Arsenal supporter that thought this was stupid. Even there were supporters that that thought this was stupid, then surely you should have some bright minds that run the Club thinking like this too.

We only have ourselves to blame now. Too many Arsenal supporters are transfer muppets just like the pieces of Trash on AFTV. That guy Robbie talks nonsense daily about players that we need to buy. Intellectually, I wonder if most supporters are muppets like the AFTV bandwagoners.

 

[OnlyOne]

Yes, but not if it meant giving a raise to someone already making 180K per week. I'm sorry, but what did PEA justify to command 350K per week? Not even KDB, Salah, or Mane make that.

We should have stuck to our guns and just extended his contract to 3 more years at the same rate - why the fook did we need to double his wages?

Who were we bidding against? I'm sorry, but I'm not the only Arsenal supporter that thought this was stupid. Even there were supporters that that thought this was stupid, then surely you should have some bright minds that run the Club thinking like this too.

We only have ourselves to blame now. Too many Arsenal supporters are transfer muppets just like the pieces of Trash on AFTV. That guy Robbie talks nonsense daily about players that we need to buy. Intellectually, I wonder if most supporters are muppets like the AFTV bandwagoners.

?

 

[Arsenal1508]

?

He was already on 180K per week. No needed to give him a raise. His play prior to contract proved that he deserved an extension....but not a fvcking raise to 350K per week.

He just turned 31 years old and we gave him a raise to double his money. That is stupidity in the highest order.

 

[OnlyOne]

He was already on 180K per week. No needed to give him a raise. His play prior to contract proved that he deserved an extension....but not a fvcking raise to 350K per week.

He just turned 31 years old and we gave him a raise to double his money. That is stupidity in the highest order.

Can you get a profile pic? I don't debate with guys who don't have an avi, sorry.

I do agree though, like if I had other companies offering me a huge pay rise I'd turn it down and stay at my current company for exactly what I was on and an extra 3 years.

 

[OSBK]

Imagine getting a 350k a week Özil off your books and still having 570k a week with auba and willian still 2 years later.

 

[Pop Tart]

Imagine getting a 350k a week Özil off your books and still having 570k a week with auba and willian still 2 years later.

I don't know maybe the small little matter of auba scoring **** loads of goals for us,being the main source and winning out first trophy post Wenger era.

Would you bought haaland instead?

 

[TakeChillPill]

Yes, but not if it meant giving a raise to someone already making 180K per week. I'm sorry, but what did PEA justify to command 350K per week? Not even KDB, Salah, or Mane make that.

Who are we offending if we had putting in performance goals in PEA contract? Only PEA. We could have spun it in the media that we are prepared to make PEA highest paid player, but it will mean only if he continues to deliver. If he doesn't deliver, we should have protected ourselves. If PEA didn't like those terms, then we should have sprouted it in the media - our muppet supporters like those in AFTV would have understood and there would not be any pressure.

We should have stuck to our guns and just extended his contract to 3 more years at the same rate - why the fook did we need to double his wages?

Who were we bidding against? I'm sorry, but I'm not the only Arsenal supporter that thought this was stupid. Even there were supporters that that thought this was stupid, then surely you should have some bright minds that run the Club thinking like this too.

We only have ourselves to blame now. Too many Arsenal supporters are transfer muppets just like the pieces of Trash on AFTV. That guy Robbie talks nonsense daily about players that we need to buy. Intellectually, I wonder if most supporters are muppets like the AFTV bandwagoners.

When you're the best teams in the world and guarantee to win titles every year then players will happily take less to stay. Less salary is balanced out with more trophies and bonuses

Any top top player wanting to join arsenal at the moment will do so because of the money. Same applies as the main reason for PEA to renew his contract.

 

[dka1]

It’s not conjecture. There are people in PR departments who do that for their job, or part of it. Public opinion is a large part of public relations.

Public opinion on players usually goes hand in hand with talent, but it’s not always the case. Popularity also decides other things that executives desire such as merchandise sales, and attracting fans... anything that results in an increase in revenue. Heck, David Beckham used to get signed almost exclusively for commercial value.

I didn’t make any suggestion that public opinion is the only factor in decision making, only that it is highly considered. Originally you were making the argument that it had no bearing on Auba’s contract signing at all, and you said I made a ridiculous statement for suggesting it.

The decision to sack staff was not popular, but sadly such staff aren’t assets (like players), they’re commodities, and it was judged that despite a minor backlash, their sacking wasn’t going to negatively impact the bottom line in any way.

No I did not, I'll quote myself:

"That is no excuse, you are paid enough, you don't listen to fans, you do what you honestly think and within your planning is best for the club.

If someone spouted that excuse out loud they deserve to be fired."

The point I made is that it should not be a major factor in the decision making process of dealing with players.

And that we should sign players based on a number of metrics, information (on the player) etc, basically whatever resources are at the club's disposal in terms of the player directly and in accordance with our plan.

I then went on to say in later messages that fan opinion probably affects the club's thinking as the individuals in the club are only human, but other factors should ultimately prevail in the decision making process.

Again none of this is me trying to argue about how things actually are or how we make decisions. The truth is we don't know for sure, but a properly run club should not be weighting fan opinion so heavily when making choices about players. That's my point.

In terms of the PR department, yes you're right that we'll have one and in certain matters (perhaps like our kits, but that's speculating) fan opinion will be important or at least considered.

But you're trying to say that fan opinion should be or is heavily weighted when it comes to decisions about players.

I'm trying to say that it shouldn't be, to the point that fans share the blame if the signing goes wrong.

You can't sign players on that basis otherwise you'll end up making a lot of signing that don't fit the profile or direction you're trying to take the club.