Mikel Arteta has urged Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang not to abandon his sterling defensive work in his pursuit of a return to the scoresheet.
Aubameyang has not scored for Arsenal since October 22 and managed to miss a great chance from just two yards out against Newcastle last Saturday.
Arteta, however, has praised the 32-year-old for his work off the ball and highlighted how his willingness to track back helped Arsenal grab the second goal of the 2-0 win.
Arteta wants Aubameyang to keep up his defensive work, particularly when Arsenal head to Old Trafford on Thursday, with the manager not worried about his forward’s lack of goals.
“That’s non-negotiable,” said Arteta. “If we want to play the way we want to play, our forward players have to keep putting the pressure on that ball every single time.
“And that moment changes the momentum of the game [against Newcastle] a little bit, because a few minutes later we score the goal again in another high-pressure situation after regaining the ball and being set in the final third.
“That’s what I demand. To put the ball in the net or not, sometimes it’s a case of millimetres, a second - Auba has that capacity and he hasn’t lost that capacity.
“So what he cannot lose is the rest, thinking, ‘I am not going to do a little bit of that [defensive work] now to score more goals’.
“It doesn’t work like that. It works, for me, in the opposite way round because he has had four opportunities to put the ball in the net [against Newcastle].”
