Aubameyang admits to 'giving up' at Arsenal with Chelsea move doomed from start

Once a huge fan favourite in north London, Aubameyang became embroiled in a bust-up with boss Mikel Arteta in 2021 and was subsequently stripped of the captaincy.

The dispute centred on Aubameyang's late return from France where he was caring for his sick mother in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

It led to the striker sealing a free transfer to Barcelona in the 2022 winter transfer window, before later returning to the Premier League with Chelsea.

In the tail end of the Covid-hit 2019/20 season, Aubameyang was faced with the proposition of signing a new contract at Arsenal or moving onto pastures new.

Arsenal were travelling to their FA Cup semi-final clash with Manchester City when he was posed a question by former teammate Alexandre Lacazette.

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"Laca asked me, 'What are you going to do?' I was like, 'To tell you the truth, I really don't know," Aubameyang recalled in an interview with The Athletic.

The Gabon international went on to inspire Arsenal to victory over City before helping the Gunners lift the FA Cup, beating Chelsea in the final - scoring a double in each of the games.

In the midst of a whirlwind, Aubameyang was persuaded to sign a new £350,000-a-week deal by Arteta which made him the highest paid player in the club's history, however the agreement failed to work out for both player and club.

"If I'm being honest, at that time I wanted to go," Aubameyang revealed. "For me, it was time to find a new challenge. I did my time. It was very nice, but I needed to change.

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"It had been four years, I did great and maybe it was time to leave it like this, proper and clean, so people remember me as a good Arsenal player. I felt I needed to go because if I stayed, something would go wrong."

Arteta proved to be a convincing figure for Aubameyang as he outlined his vision for future player recruitment and new innovative methods of play.

"He convinced me," Aubameyang added. "He said, 'I think you can leave a legacy'. I think it was the first time I heard this word in English.

"He said, 'If you stay, you can be an icon, like the big names at Arsenal'. I started to change my vision. He and the fans convinced me to stay. But at first, I wanted to leave. This is where it got chaotic, because when you go against your heart, maybe this is where I made my mistake."

Despite still operating at the top of his game, Aubameyang admits personal trauma soon came to the fore as his time at Arsenal began to wind down.

"I felt it progressively," he said. "Slowly, slowly, I was kind of giving up. Sometimes there are things more important than football. Maybe people don't realise, because they think football is the most important thing but that is not true."

Stating he needed to 'feel love again' after Arsenal, Aubameyang linked up with the Blaugrana, but lasted just seven months in Spain.

Part of his reasoning for leaving Barcelona was due to a horrifying situation where he was the victim of a violent robbery at his home in the Catalan city.

"My eldest son came running and said to me, 'Dad, some guys are in the house'," said Aubameyang. "I said, 'Just hide'.

"They came in from outside, where my wife was smoking with my cousin and her boyfriend. They took him (the cousin's boyfriend) and came into the house. My wife was screaming. They had a gun."

The striker revealed he 'grabbed a big bottle' and went upstairs to try to confront the intruders.

"At the same time, my sister-in-law was there with our little one," he continues. "I said to her, too, 'Just go. Try to hide somewhere.' This is when I saw the guys. There were four or five, I think.

"One had the gun and said to me, 'Just go down.' I said, 'No, no, no. Tell me what you want.' We talked and he said, 'Sit down.' I said, 'No.' This is when he started to punch me."

He continued: "I wanted to fight, but one guy went down and took my kids and sister-in-law," he says. "At that point, I couldn't do anything. If you do something wrong, something can happen to them. We went through the house and I gave them what they wanted, so we could be OK."

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Aubameyang had a number of possessions stolen including jewellery and watches, however the most damage was done to his psychological state.

"If I was alone, no problem," Aubameyang insists. "I can handle it, as mentally I've been prepared for everything in life, thanks to my parents. But when you have a wife and kids, it's different.

"After that, the kids told me, 'Papa, I don't want to go to school, I'm scared something is going to happen there.' For a year my little one said, 'I cannot sleep alone.' It was a big struggle. You have it always in the mind.

"I still have that house, but haven't gone back since. I think I'll start to rent it because my kids don't want to go to Barcelona. Their school organised a trip there — they said, 'No chance I go'.

"I made a mistake not talking to anyone. If I had someone to talk to, a therapist or psychologist, maybe it could have helped. But I didn't want to do anything. To tell you the truth, I was lost."

His next move came in the form of an unlikely switch to Chelsea where he would reunite with his former manager at Borussia Dortmund, Thomas Tuchel.

But things took a swift turn when the German was sacked within a week of Aubameyang's arrival following a 1-0 Champions League defeat to Dinamo Zagreb, in which he made his debut.

The striker revealed that there was 'no chance' of him leaving Barcelona for Chelsea had Tuchel not been in charge of the west London club.

Speaking about Tuchel's mood during his final hours at Chelsea, he said: "We lost and he was p***** off. Usually, he would go crazy, but he came to the dressing room and then left. I was like, 'This is not the guy I know. Very strange.' The next day, he was sacked."

The situation worsened for Aubameyang following the arrival of Graham Potter which saw him omitted from Chelsea's Champions League squad, before the club looked to force him out in early 2023.

"That is when I started to say, 'OK, this is very disrespectful,'" he said. "They tried to send me on loan to America. I said: 'No chance.'

"I felt p***ed off. From that point, I said, 'The season is done for me already.' I just went to training to maintain fitness; I knew I was not going to play."

Aubameyang added that he feels no bitterness towards Chelsea, but claims that the club chose the wrong profile of striker when they turned their attention to him.

He believes a big striker such as Didier Drogba is what Chelsea were crying out for at the time and that he didn't fit the mould.

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"I never had that connection," Aubameyang said. "No connections at all. The fans wanted the Auba they saw with Arsenal. At the time, I was not ready for that and didn't get the opportunity.

"I was not ready, as well, because of what happened in Barcelona. It was a chaotic year, but it was good for me because I needed a break and, at the same time, they didn't want to play me."