Interview

Auba - How being captain has changed me

It is almost exactly a year to the day since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang inherited the captain’s armband.

In that time we have lifted the Emirates FA Cup and the Community Shield - so what sort of effect has the role had on him?

“I think [I have changed], yeah,” he told our official matchday programme. “Because you feel a lot of responsibilities and I think I am trying to give everything in every single game. 

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“I think before maybe, I don't know, it was not done on purpose but maybe sometimes I was a little bit less concerned on certain games. But now I am just focusing on every game and trying to give my best. Even if I'm on the bench I try to scream and help my team-mates, so yeah I think it's changed me.

“I think this is really important because sometimes you can also have bad days and be in a bad mood, so you have to try to change it into positive things. This is where I am, how can I say, it's easy for me to make people maybe happier: to lift them up and that's my job. I can say that's my job but I do it naturally.

“I just have to be the example for everyone. If I have to go to the gym to do the upper body I have to go first, then everyone will follow. Because the guys in the gym are waiting and say, ‘If you come then everyone will come! You know that!' So I say 'OK, OK' so now I am the first to go to the gym, this is it.”