The heir to the Throne of the United Kingdom and the Duke of Cambridge Prince William has jokingly asked the captain of Arsenal football club Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to join Aston Villa.
Aubameyang is unarguably the best player at Arsenal currently and his contract with the club will expire in 2021. Earlier in the month, Futballnews reported that there is no deal on the table for Aubameyang, hence, it is not certain whether the club is planning to extend his contract or not.
It is not also certain whether the 30-year-old striker would want to have more years at the club as he has always wanted to play in the Champions League and win titles, feats that are looking impossible for Arsenal this season.
Since he joined Arsenal from Borussia Dortmund in 2018, he has scored over 49 goals in 75 appearances. Last season, he was the joint highest goal scorers in the Premier League, and yet, there was no medal to show for it.
Before this season was interrupted in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Gabonese striker has scored 17 goals and made one assist in the Premier League but that is not enough to take the club above the 9th spot on the league table with just 40 points. With these stats, it is believed that Arsenal is not good enough for the striker, hence the joke from Prince William.
The prince met with some stars at Arsenal, including the club’s manager Mikel Arteta, via video conference call to talk about the challenges of mental health. Before they went into the nitty-gritty of the serious issue, Prince William who has been a famous supporter of Aston Villa said: “Pierre, I’m hoping you’ll be at Aston Villa.”
The statement sparked laughter among those who connected to the Zoom call but that did not stop the prince from adding that “we’ll have a word later”, an attempt to prove that he was serious with the joke.
On the mental health debate, Prince William talked about the importance of renaming the Emirates FA Cup Final as The Heads Up FA Cup Final. He said the decision was to get people to start talking more about the issue of mental health especially post-coronavirus pandemic.
“I think there’s going to be, sadly, a lot of repercussions from this in society, not just in football, in terms of people’s mental health. Hopefully, the FA Cup can be a bit of a pivot that people can rally around.”
The final is scheduled to take place on August 1 in Wembley Stadium.
