Ian Wright has urged Mikel Arteta to ‘kill’ his bad blood with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after Arsenal’s 2-0 win over West Ham in the hope that the club are able to ‘move on’ from the episode.
Arteta stripped Aubameyang of the captaincy due to a disciplinary breach and the striker has been left out of the Gunners’ last two games against Southampton and West Ham, with Lacazette wearing the armband in his absence.
The saga dominated the build-up to Wednesday’s London derby, but Arsenal’s London derby win ensured they leapfrogged the Hammers into the top four thanks to goals from Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe.
Arteta was reluctant to be drawn on Aubameyang’s future when pressed both before and after the game, keen only to discuss his team’s display at the Emirates.
Asked whether his players had been distracted by the noise, Arteta said: ‘No, they were fully focussed and they wanted to show how strong we are as a team.
‘The performance, attitude and commitment is exactly what we asked them, not myself but as a club. ‘I expect every player to stick to our values and do what they have to do.’
Pressed on whether there was work to be done to reestablish a relationship with Aubameyang, Arteta replied: ‘We will talk about that another day. Today I want to focus on the game.’
In response to Arteta’s post-match interview, Wright said he was disappointed the Spanish coach had decided against ‘quashing’ his beef with Aubameyang.
‘He’s just not entertaining anything to do with Aubameyang and I totally understand when he says he just wants to concentrate on what happened today and he doesn’t want to talk about it,’ Wright told Premier League Productions.
‘But I don’t think you can continue to avoid it, especially in the way that it has come about. At some stage you’re going to have to quash it or talk about it.
‘He’s got the capability of killing it and saying, “Yeah, he’s in the plans and he’s an Arsenal player”, and he didn’t do it.
‘I was hoping for something like that because what you want now is everything’s done, Arsenal have won, they’ve played brilliantly, the boss has been vindicated for his decisions so just quash it so they can move on.
‘It’s going to be talked about again, they will mention it again for the next game. And then if he’s not in the next game… so he can kill it, that’s all I’m saying. Kill it.’
