1 Summer Transfer Rumour Borussia Dortmund Fans Do Not Want to Come True

There has been plenty of speculation surrounding Borussia Dortmund's best players this summer. Ilkay Gundogan is going here, Mats Hummels is going there and, on rare occasions, it seems as though Marco Reus is once again on the cusp of leaving. They're all stories that are seemingly no more than transfer rumours and whispers behind the scenes.

Yet there is one story that has continued to bubble to the surface this summer that continues to chill Dortmund fans to the bone. A move that would cause an almighty mess if true and surely bring new manager Thomas Tuchel and his side to their knees before he even got started. 

We are talking about the potential transfer of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Dortmund's top goalscorer last season will undoubtedly be a fundamental part of Tuchel's team this coming campaign if they hope to march back to the top of the Bundesliga table. 

According to reports from Bild in late June, relayed by Jamie Sanderson of Metro, Arsenal are on the verge of making a £28.7 million offer for the Dortmund star after missing out on Porto striker Jackson Martinez.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the rumour is the fact the figure is a truly astronomical fee to be spending on Aubameyang. As vital as the Gabonese is, if such an offer did indeed come in, fans of the Bundesliga club would know the board at the Westfalenstadion would surely have to accept it. And that in itself is slightly worrying.

To explain just how important Aubameyang is to Dortmund's first team, we first have to get analyse the stats surrounding his comrades in Tuchel's attack.

To kick things off, we have Ciro Immobile. The young, Italian striker was signed last season for a considerable fee with the expectation and promise he would hit the ground running in Germany and quickly make up for the goals lost as a result of Robert Lewandowski's departure. 

Yet after 24 Bundesliga matches, spanning a total of just under 1,000 minutes on the pitch, the 24-year-old has just three goals to his name and very little to show for the campaign in general, recorded by Transfermarkt. 

Such poor form has found the young striker linked with a number of clubs—specifically a return to Italy—yet the club confirmed on July 3, per Kicker (h/t Jens Webber of ESPN FC), that no offers had been made for Immobile.

Frank Augstein/Associated Press

A similar problem has engulfed the club's third-choice striker, Adrian Ramos, who also joined Dortmund last summer and has done very little since to suggest he'll be of any use to Tuchel this coming season. 

Unlike Immobile, Ramos does have an exceptional goalscoring record in Germany. However, in the last campaign, he scored just six goals in 29 games in all competitions, via Transfermarkt. 

The simple fact of the matter is without Aubameyang, Dortmund simply wouldn't have an accomplished goalscorer to rely upon.

According to Transfermarkt, the 26-year-old forward amassed an impressive 16 goals and seven assists in the Bundesliga last season, which means he was responsible for at least 23 of the club's league goals during the 2014/15 campaign.

When we consider that Dortmund only managed to score 47 goals over the course of the last Bundesliga season, we begin to see just how important Aubameyang really is to Dortmund. Ramos or Immobile may have been signed as the strikers to replace Lewandowski, but this free-scoring wide forward seems to be the one to have done it.

Aubameyang will never truly be considered as vital to Dortmund's cause as perhaps Marco Reus or Mats Hummels—both seem to save their best performances for the biggest stage, a trait that still seems to elude the Gabon striker at times—but he is certainly the very best of the rest. 

Rumours about a bid from Arsenal, or indeed any top club, will always remain exactly that. But in the back of every Dortmund fan's mind, there will be the hope that there's absolutely no truth to such stories. This German club desperately needs to hang onto Aubameyang if it wants to reclaim its spot at the top of the Bundesliga table.

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