"A panic buy" - Emmanuel Petit believes Chelsea attacker has 'lost his passion' for the game

Arsenal legend Emmanuel Petit has labeled Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang a panic buy by Chelsea.

The Blues signed the Gabon international from Barcelona last summer for a fee of €12 million. He arrived on deadline day and has since struggled to establish himself under manager Graham Potter.

Aubameyang has managed to score just one goal in 431 minutes of league action this campaign. These are not the numbers one would want to associate with the 2015 'African Player of the Year'.

He shared the Premier League Golden Boot in the 2018-19 season and was Arsenal's 'Player of the Season' the following campaign. After registering 92 goals and 31 assists in 163 games across competitions for the Gunners, he joined Barcelona in January 2022.

He scored 11 times in 17 La Liga games in the second half of that campaign before joining the Blues, who needed a striker at the time.

Timo Werner was allowed to return to RB Leipzig on a permanent transfer while Romelu Lukaku re-joined Inter Milan on a season-long loan last summer. However, Petit believes the Blues signed the 33-year-old out of desperation.

He told SportingPost:

"I said at the start of the season when they bought him it looked like a panic buy. Aubameyang is still a quality striker but he isn’t what he used to be."

He added:

"I think he lost his passion and I think after his spell at Barcelona he can see what Arsenal are doing without him. What Jesus and Nketiah are doing. Maybe he is thinking if he had the right attitude he could be part of what is going on."

He also said:

"Now with Chelsea, maybe there is a 'curse' with the striker, but Drogba wasn’t cursed – the whole team is not working, there is something wrong at the moment."

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What Aubameyang had to say about Chelsea's No. 9 curse

Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who was at Chelsea between 2000 and 2004, was arguably the last striker to justify wearing the No. 9 shirt for the Blues.

Since then, world-class names like Hernan Crespo, Fernando Torres, Radamel Falcao, Alvaro Morata, and Gonzalo Higuain have inherited that number. None of them, however, have worn the number for more than three years at SW6.

Speaking after scoring in Chelsea's 3-0 Champions League home win over AC Milan in October, Aubameyang was asked if he was worried about the curse that the No. 9 shirt carries.

He replied (h/t Football London):

"I don’t know, I don’t listen to these kind of things. I love the No.9 so I took it. I’m happy with that and hopefully I can score more goals."

Since saying the aforementioned words, he has scored just once in his past 13 appearances across competitions for the club.