Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

[hibsbollah]

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I'd agree, decent was a bit unfair and i used the wrong word there. He's obviously better than decent. The question raised by the OP was that he was in the top 3 strikers in the world and his hold up/link up play is nowhere near top 3 level.

He may be able to burn the rest of the strikers for pace but pace isn't that much use if you're playing again one of the smaller teams who defend deep which is vital to the club trying to win things. All the other strikers i named are brilliant at it. The ability to hold it up and link the play is massive and the fact that he is so poor at it is why he's been shunted out left wing since Arteta has arrived.

‘Hold up play’ is just one of many techniques to beat a defence when you don’t have great pace. Auba showed with his second goal the ability to beat a defender without using his pace, the outrageous feint right and move left with Messi like chip afterwards. So I’d say even on that one piece of evidence he has more in his toolbox than just pace. Whether you call it ‘hold up play’ in the classic Olivier Giroud sense doesn’t really matter IMO. You don’t need to bring someone else into the game if you have the stuff to skin a defender and chip the keeper yourself. I think that’s why he’s up there with the absolute best.

[Winston Ingram]

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‘Hold up play’ is just one of many techniques to beat a defence when you don’t have great pace. Auba showed with his second goal the ability to beat a defender without using his pace, the outrageous feint right and move left with Messi like chip afterwards. So I’d say even on that one piece of evidence he has more in his toolbox than just pace. Whether you call it ‘hold up play’ in the classic Olivier Giroud sense doesn’t really matter IMO. You don’t need to bring someone else into the game if you have the stuff to skin a defender and chip the keeper yourself. I think that’s why he’s up there with the absolute best.

I'm sorry but hold up play absolutely matters. At the top level, you can't have the ball bouncing off your CF like it does him.