‘You build the team around him’ – Jean-Louis Gasset praises in-form Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang | OneFootball

Olympique de Marseille interim manager Jean-Louis Gasset has heaped praise on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (34), who after a slow start to the season, has hit top form in 2024.

Questions were being asked of Aubameyang earlier this season. He scored just one goal in his opening 12 games in Ligue 1. However, first under Gennaro Gattuso and now under Gasset, the Gabonese forward has hit top form. He has eight goals in his last seven games in all competitions and 23 in 37 games in all competitions this season. He is the first player to score 23 goals in a debut season at Marseille since Didier Drogba in the 2003/04 season.

His brace against FC Nantes on Sunday, his seventh of the season, sees OM rise to seventh in Ligue 1 and to within just three points of fifth-placed RC Lens. Speaking post-match, Gasset revealed that he sought advice from his former managers in order to know how to best utilise the former Arsenal, Chelsea, Barcelona and Borussia Dortmund forward.

“He is THE goalscorer, THE player of the team. There is one in every team, in every team in the world there is a player that makes the difference. We have to protect him and put him in the right places to allow him to keep his energy to make the difference. I knew him; I spoke with friends who had coached him. I knew where he liked to play, and the positions that he liked to move into. He is the player and you then build the team around him,” Gasset told Prime Video Sport.

GFFN | Luke Entwistle