Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has described Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as “very dangerous” ahead of their clash with Chelsea.
The Gunners allowed Aubemeyang to leave the club last winter after a number of disciplinary breaches saw him stripped of the captaincy and made to train alone.
He left for Barcelona, where he scored 13 goals in 24 appearances for the Catalan giants, before Chelsea paid £10.3m for his signature in the summer.
So far the Gabon international has bagged three goals in 11 appearances for Chelsea and he will be looking to increase that tally when the Blues host London rivals Arsenal on Sunday.
Ahead of the match, Aubameyang has been appearing in a BT Sport advert with a message to his former club, he said: “Arsenal, nothing personal, I’m back, I’m blue, I’m ready”.
When asked about Aubameyang’s words, Arteta replied: “You expect players to do that. If you ask any of our players how they feel about where they are, they will say the same.”
When asked how dangerous the former Arsenal striker could be on Sunday, Arteta added: “Very dangerous.
“If Auba has something, it’s the ability to put the ball in the back of the net and he’s going to be doing that until the day that he decides he’s had enough of football.
“We will have to look first of all at what Chelsea do and try to put a plan together to avoid that.”
Aubameyang recently took a swipe at Arteta on his return to the Premier League with the 33-year-old insisting that the Arsenal manager finds it hard to manage “big characters”.
“To manage big characters or big players, he [Arteta] can’t deal with it,” Aubameyang said. “He [Arteta] needs some young players, they don’t say anything, they listen.”
On whether Aubameyang was challenging to manage during his final weeks at Arsenal, Arteta continued: “Nothing, we made decisions, we discussed things and we made a clear decision between all of us.
“It’s a decision that we had to take and there are different parties involved. At the end of the day, when someone is not with us anymore and being a player and having the role that he had at the club and how important he was, you always wish everybody the best.
“When someone makes that decision to move somewhere else, they need to enjoy their profession and he seems to be happy.”
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