Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang: Chelsea striker may be the one to make Graham Potter’s football work

In the 2020-21 season, Graham Potter’s Brighton finished 16th in the Premier League table but fifth in the Expected Goals rankings.

They scored 14 fewer goals than xG predicted, and as a result accrued 20 fewer points.

It was clear that Potter’s teams played superb football and could be capable of great things – as long as they had someone to put the ball in the back of the net.

In Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Potter may finally have that player at Chelsea.

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Aubameyang has now scored three goals in as many games for Chelsea, netting home and away against AC Milan in the Champions League as the Blues have risen from the bottom of Group E to the top.

The 33-year-old also scored against Crystal Palace in the Premier League, playing a key part in Potter earning four wins and a draw from his first five matches in charge of the Blues.

“No, we’ve not done anything special, it’s all down to him. He has been building his fitness up,” said Potter after the forward’s goal at the San Siro on Tuesday.

“We spoke before that he came from a difficult summer so it’s been a case of building up his match minutes and the more he gets the stronger he gets, and the more we understand him the more he understands us.

“Everyone knows his quality and it’s great for him. He looks like he is enjoying his football and scoring goals is important.”

Former Chelsea goalkeeper Rob Green, speaking as a pundit on BBC Radio 5 Live’s coverage of the 2-0 win in Milan, summed up Aubameyang’s predatory ability to score goals of many types.

He said: “Aubameyang is a quality finisher, he had a wonderful finish against Crystal Palace, then the tap-in from Reece James’ ball last week against AC Milan.

“Tonight he was on to a loose ball… and slammed it home.”

Aubameyang has scored in consecutive Champions League appearances for the first time since December 2017, reasserting his status as one of the elite number nines in Europe today.

Tuchel’s signing purring under Potter

He has shown how key he can be for Potter, something that could not have been taken for granted given the circumstances of his arrival at Stamford Bridge.

Aubameyang was part of Chelsea’s £255m spending in the summer, joining under his former Borussia Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel.

A key reason Chelsea signed Aubameyang was his strong relationship with Tuchel. The German coached the Gabon forward at Borussia Dortmund between 2015 and 2017 when he was arguably at the height of his powers, scoring 79 goals across 95 games in all competitions.

Aubameyang may now be five years older, but Tuchel gambled that the scoring touch is still there; his statistics indicate it absolutely is.

However, Tuchel only got to use his man for 30 minutes in the defeat by Dinamo Zagreb – his final game in charge. The striker had only taken part in one training session and it came shortly after his family were targeted in a violent robbery at his home in Barcelona in which Aubameyang suffered a jaw injury.

So Tuchel was gone, and as Aubameyang’s unflattering comments about Mikel Arteta demonstrated, there were no guarantees he would perform or play ball under a new boss.

Certainly he is not a guaranteed starter under Potter, who left him as an unused substitute for the weekend Premier League win over Wolves. Whether he was saving Aubameyang for Milan or not, leaving out a striker who had scored in back-to-back games was a big call.

But it was one that paid off and in this Chelsea team, Aubameyang looks a fearsome proposition.

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