Thomas Tuchel has already given Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang verdict amid Chelsea transfer link

‎Chelsea have been linked with a stunning move for former Arsenal captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

The striker only left England in January to join Barcelona, but is already on the possible list of outgoings from Catalonia as Juan Laporta tries to shift some of the financial issues, even temporarily.

Thomas Tuchel also isn’t hiding his desperation for reinforcements at Chelsea.

He has been extremely public with his desire for not only new signings but also an exodus of outgoings as well as the transfer window enters its final month.

The new ownership group with Todd Boehly as the outward facing negotiator has been busier and more active in the market than any other owner to memory, but has still only completed two senior signings, though deals for Gabriel Slonina and Carney Chukwuemeka indicate some sense of long-term planning as well.

Chelsea face Everton on Saturday though and have a tricky start to the Premier League season, hence Tuchel’s desire to have new faces in the squad early as he juggles with squad issues, contract logistics and on-field management.

That has led him down the route of experience, favouring that over the risk and time consuming path of developing Chelsea’s own younger players, which raises its own questions.

But Tuchel has already shown that when given the right tools, he can create innovative ways to be successful. This is why his interest in Aubameyang makes sense.

Chelsea themselves held serious interest in the player during his time at Borussia Dortmund
and Tuchel was his manager at the time. The former Arsenal striker scored 56 goals in 61 league matches under the German in a successful spell.

As Tuchel looks for a short-term answer to his goalscoring problems, with Kai Havertz and Armando Broja only scoring 14 goals between them last term, Aubameyang is the image of a proven goalscorer.

In his time at Arsenal he scored 92 times in 163 matches with a strike rate of more than one in every two league games as well.

His tally of 22 league goals in 2018/19 is more
than any Chelsea striker has managed since Didier Drogba in 2010 and is the second highest total reached by any player managed by Tuchel for a
full season.

This has kept Tuchel keen on the player and the manager has spoken glowingly about him several times since coming to Chelsea, saying in December:

“I will, I will at some point. [contact Aubameyang] But, you know, I don’t want to also
disturb [him].

“I think he was a very important player for me and we had a very close relationship until today. When we meet it’s still always very, very nice. I can only
say the best things about Auba as a player and as a person.

I feel sorry for him that he’s in trouble. This is not where he should be with his kind of quality and the positive character that he has – and I still believe in that.