With the winning strike in a 1-0 victory over Newcastle United, Arsenal forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang kicked off his season in typically scintillating style, a perfect finish past Magpies goalkeeper Martin Dúbravka.
Aubameyang has now registered 33 goals in his first 50 appearances for Arsenal, a tally better than Gunners legend Thierry Henry, from his first 20 months in England.
The Gabonese made the move to the Emirates from Borussia Dortmund in January 2018 for £56m, at the time a club-record fee for Arsenal (this has since been surpassed with Nicolas Pepe’s £72m move from Lille in Summer 2019).
Only Alan Shearer, Andrew Cole, Mohamed Salah, and Kevin Phillips now stand above Aubameyang for the more impressive half-century record in the Premier League era.
One week into the new 2019/20 season, the 30-year-old now has 42 goals in 66 appearances in all competitions for Arsenal.
At the end of last season he shared the Premier League Golden Boot for most goals scored (22) with Liverpool duo Salah and Sadio Mane. He becomes the third Arsenal player to do so after Henry and Robin van Persie, and the first time a Gooner has managed the feat since RVP in 2012. Aubameyang’s goal-scoring proficiency can legitimately stand tall alongside the European elite.
Preceding this season, Aubameyang has registered seven more goals than Tottenham Hotspur’s Harry Kane - the highest scoring player in the Premier League in the last half a decade - in the same period, across his time in both the Bundesliga and the EPL. Manchester City’s all time record goalscorer Sergio Aguero stands slightly behind Kane at 157 in the same period. Mohamed Salah has lit up the English top tier since his return two years ago. The former Chelsea player was a £34m purchase for Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool in 2017 and has gone on to light
Antoine Griezmann recently made the brogdinagianally priced move across La Liga from Atletico Madrid to Barcelona. The Frenchman was the latest in a long line of prodigious strikers to legitimise the legacy of the Rojiblancos spearhead, Griezmann’s tally does in fact pale in comparison to Aubameyang. Griezmann scored 133 goals, in all competitions, across the last five seasons for Diego Simeone’s side, before his £107m move to become a Blaugrana.
The world’s most expensive player Neymar experienced an injury-blighted 18/19, culminating in speculation with a reunion with Barcelona, where he’d of course line up alongside Griezmann.
It was in his second season in Spain - in which Barca achieved their second continental treble in six years - where his goal-scoring prowess was most on display, with 39 goals in all competitions. In total the Brazilian has registered 141 goals in the past half-decade.
