Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: Arsenal striker not available for Leeds, says Mikel Arteta | Football News

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is not available for Arsenal’s Premier League match at Leeds on Saturday, says manager Mikel Arteta.

Aubameyang, who was stripped of the Arsenal captaincy after a disciplinary breach, has been dropped for the previous two matches and Arteta was unable to shed any light on when he may return.

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But the Arsenal boss was able to confirm that the Gabon striker would be missing a third game, as Aubameyang gets set to sit out Saturday’s trip to Leeds, which will be live on Sky Sports Premier League.

“No he’s not available for selection,” said Arteta, who batted away questions on Aubameyang’s future.

Asked how he had coped with the fallout of taking the armband from Aubameyang, Arteta said: “Every time that you are sitting here, you have some challenges.

“You have some brilliant moments and some moments when you have to make decisions.

“I am sitting here to try to make the right decisions every day. My only intention is that – to get the club in the best possible condition, to defend our players and get the best possible results on the pitch that we can.

“It’s been challenging because those decisions are tough and not pleasant, but you have to do what you feel is right.”

‘A difficult road back for Auba now’ – Smith

Sky Sports pundit Alan Smith

It looks a difficult road back for Aubameyang at Arsenal.

When you do what you do to the captain of the club, and from the outside looking in, quite rightly Arteta has done it.

You wonder what Aubameyang’s state of mind will be now. It didn’t seem great in the first place in terms of his confidence out on the pitch.

I still think he’s got about 18 months left on his deal and I’m sure at this point Arteta would like to sell him, but somebody on £350,000-a-week is going to be virtually impossible to move on, unless they do what they did with Mesut Ozil and give him a shed load of money and he’d have to accept less money elsewhere.

It’s a problem and a problem Arteta didn’t need, but now it’s a big challenge for Arsenal to rebuild their attack and it is going to depend on some very clever and inspired recruitment.

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