I don’t feel like that much of this post refutes the assertion that he was one of our great goalscorers, it seems to more address what his legacy will be, what he has(n’t) achieved as an Arsenal player. Which I think is a bit of a separate thing. Everything you’ve said about his lasting impact/legacy can be true and he could still be regarded as having been a great goalscorer, I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.
He was a great goalscorer for Arsenal but it turns out that there was nothing to show for it aside from the FA Cup win, its just how it often goes when you have an excellent player in a mostly average team playing under a series of average managers.
Define what it means to be a great goalscorer for the club? Giroud, for example, has over 100 goals for the club and multiple trophies to his name, most people on here wouldn’t call him a great goal scorer despite this.
Take away that FA cup run and Auba doesn’t have many big game moments or signature goals, imo. Even in terms of numbers he never really dominated the league, most he ever hit was 22 league goals
If it’s just being prolific against fodder in a 2.5 year window and falling off a cliff after that’s isn’t particularly special to me especially compared to others who have scored more, done it in bigger games/higher level for an extended period of time.
Not calling Auba a bum or dismissing his contribution but it doesn’t compare to the greats we’ve had here
Scored against Tottenham(equalizer, twice in 4-2 win), Manchester City(scored twice in semifinal), Manchester United(four times), Chelsea(PL, scored twice in final)
Almost got us qualified for next stage of Europa against Olympiacos.
Isn’t that subjective? You may not remember them but others might.
I can clearly remember the first time shot against Tottenham that led to the equalizer after we went 2-0 down.
I can remember Tierney putting Auba through against City with a glorious ball.
When I think of his “great” goals there are really only three. The FA Cup semi, the final and that one goal under Emery where it was such a good passing move that Lacazette ran away in the opposite direction from the celebration (maybe against Leicester or West Ham?) but even that goal was a tap in and I only remember it because of the passing move.
How prolific they are is obviously the main factor when you’re talking about whether someone is a great goalscorer. You can talk about significant moments and “signatures goals”, but they’re not really relevant when you’re discussing how good a player is at scoring goals. I don’t remember that many amazing Inzaghi or van Nistlerooy goals compared to players like Henry, Messi, Ronaldo etc, but that’d only be relevant to discussing their merits and overall standing as great all round attacking players, not to whether they were great goalscorers.
You’ve got great goalscorers (Auba, RvN, Inzaghi), scorers of great goals (Bergkamp) and players who can do both (Henry, Messi, Ronaldoes). At least that’s a very simplistic rendition of how I’ve always viewed it.
For me, you largely assess someone’s standing as a goalscorer on the number of goals they scored in the amount of games, then after that you can have a conversation about their legacy and what those goals helped achieve. Which in Aubameyang’s case wasn’t much compared to others in our history. Which is why they’ll be regarded as club legends, whereas Aubameyang will be remembered as a great goalscorer for a couple of seasons who didn’t win enough or keep it up for long enough to be a club legend.
Since Aubameyang last played for us, to when he is next available after AFCON, we will have paid him around 2m in wages, which is the fee the club paid for Ian Wright.
You keep saying fodder, Trion has highlighted goals against good teams and all you did was wave it away by saying he probably had to use Google lol.
And every time you say “except the FA Cup” for me all you’re doing is reminding me that Auba scored four goals across the semi and final, against City and Chelsea, in narrow matches, to come as close to single handedly winning us a trophy as any player that came before him. And with our lack of European pedigree, there is no denying that the FA Cup has always been a very significant trophy for Arsenal.
Those four goals in that one FA Cup run may well be more than Henry scored in semis and finals in his whole Arsenal career. Without googling, I’d wager that’s correct lol
Football is about the fans at the end of the day. A winning run with no fans to gather and enjoy in the moment doesn’t sway me compared to time where we had that opportunity
It’s relevant because Arsenal had been on a great winning run with FA cups and we previously beat Chelsea in a final. Kinda been there done that vibes