Arsenal accidentally confirm Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang transfer after posting wrong video on website
Wenger's post-match interview after the 3-1 defeat by Swansea instead featured the Arsenal manager confirming that Aubameyang has joined the club from Borussia Dortmund
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Your support makes all the difference.Arsenal appear to have jumped the gun on their move for Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after the wrong video was published on their website on Tuesday night.
The Gunners are waiting on Dortmund to give them the green light to announce the club-record £60m deal, which will see Arsene Wenger set a new highest transfer fee for the second time this season after the £52m acquisition of Alexandre Lacazette last summer.
But Wenger has been caught up in what looks to be a particularly messy and embarrassing incident late on Tuesday night after the club posted his reaction video to their Arsenal Player – only for it to be the wrong clip.
Under a headline ‘They were hungrier and we were absolutely guilty’, Wenger was pictured against the sponsored backdrop at the Liberty Stadium immediately after the 3-1 defeat that leaves Arsenal eight points off the top four and 23 points behind leaders Manchester City.
But the video was evidently not what it was supposed to be, as rather than offer his thoughts on the game, Wenger instead was asked what he thought about their latest signing – Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
“Aubameyang is an Arsenal player, you must be delighted to get the deal done?” Wenger was asked.
“Yes, it's good news,” he said. “We need people who can give us more offensive power. At the moment we aren't efficient enough going forward, and hopefully I'm convinced he will bring us that. He has a big challenge in front of him, he wants to win the Premier League.
“Overall, I believe he is welcome and that is absolutely good news for us.”
Asked why he decided to move for Aubameyang, Wenger reeled off a list of the Gabon international’s best qualities that persuaded the club to send chief executive Ivan Gazidis to Dortmund to try and structure a deal.
“I would say overall his pace, his finishing, the quality of his runs, the quality of his reception, including cross and overall his huge physical capacity to repeat runs,” Wenger added. “Of course that will be important in the Premier League because the physical challenge is very high.”
Aubameyang arrives little more than a week after Alexis Sanchez left the club for Manchester United, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan moving to the Emirates Stadium in a swap deal, and the Frenchman hopes that the addition of Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan will make up for the dearth of goals left by Sanchez’s departure.
He said: “That’s what we hope and we are keen to see them all together to see what we can do, that is of course very important and overall I believe that let’s make that happen soon because it’s not over the line yet but hopefully that will be done tomorrow.”
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