Nicolas Pépé signed with Arsenal as one of the most sought-after attackers in Europe during the summer of 2019. He joined with massive expectations given Pepe’s performances for LOSC Lille in Ligue 1, and even more expectation given he was – at that time – Arsenal’s club-record transfer signing at £72m! However, since his signing and his underwhelming performances for the club, he has largely been seen as a player who has not met expectations (which is a fair argument to be made given the transfer fee).
So, what happened to Nicolas Pepe? What went wrong for Nicolas Pepe at Arsenal? And where will Nicolas Pepe end up now that Arsenal is trying to actively terminate his contract?
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SOURCES:
https://www.goal.com/en/lists/nicolas-pepe-how-arsenal-s-record-signing-turned-into-a-gbp72m-nightmare/blt03149d811892bef8#cs3f734a00f65dd92b
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/transfer-news/nicolas-pepe-arsenal-arteta-transfer-27454011?int_source=nba
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/transfer-news/nicolas-pepe-transfer-arsenal-contract-27131874
https://theathletic.com/1028209/2019/06/14/nicolas-pepe-ligue-1s-overnight-sensation-and-true-player-of-the-season/
Intro: 00:00
The former keeper: 00:50
Arsenal win the race, but…: 05:29
Back to France: 09:28
Outro: 15:17
28 Comments
As an Arsenal fan I remember the signing of pepe like it was yesterday and the hype around him around the time.. such a shame it hasnt worked out!
Pepe and Sancho scored the same amount of goals in the same number of matches but people call Pepe a bigger flop
I'm not an Arsenal fan, but I was excited to see him tear up opposition's defence in the PL. Too bad it didn't pan out as expected of him & his hefty price tag. 😅
The problem now is Arsenal are playing a system that just doesn't suit him, but he will very well for a lot of other teams
Arteta has had a net expenditure of nearly €420 million on player transfers since joining Arsenal. Ten Hag has spent a net amount of €321 million since coming to Man United.
If Pep Guardiola had spent such huge sums without winning the league, he'd have been declared a failure. Pep's standards are above and beyond everybody else's.
Cheers.
Overrated trash
That 20/21 season he led the team in G/A despite getting half of saka minutes. He probably should have left in summer 2021. He was never Artetas type. Then we had an awful start to 21/22 season , his fate was sealed
rubbish player, 0 football IQ and performed worse than a 18 yo Saka. Definitely the flop of the century.
I saw the thumbnail and thought it was Pogba, then thought who's Pepe, then remembered as soon as the video started lol
Pepe didn't flop at Arsenal he just doesnt fit in Arteta system similar to Tierney
He's good but he never fit into Arteta's system and his natural position was taken by Saka, he was played outside of his usual position and played few games and was used as a substitute mainly. He lost his confidence and regular playing time to develop himself, this translated into his game and what we see from him today.
As an Arsenal fan gutted that he didn’t convince. I actually think he’s better than a lot of guys still at the club (and recently signed), but it’s all about Arteta.
Technically gifted but the physicality of a lamb…..would be a great player if no one was allowed to go near him…..feeble in a nutshell.
Pepe got treated unfairly and labeled as a flop but Sancho who went to mount myouboku to and came back more ass is treated as a misunderstood player who needa more time its his 3rd season now at Man u
Unai Emery happened to pepe
He's the most frustrating player to watch but somehow he's also extremely efficient for G/A.
talented for sure but ultimately i think he has himself to blame, maybe the club is also at fault for a somewhat directionless signing, but modern players have to be adaptable, if you have to track back you track back, if you have to press you press, in possession stuff is only half the game and if you want to get away with not doing it you've got to be m'bappe or messi level of brilliant to be worth including in the team.
When did Arsenal finish 9th?
Unai Emery wanted Zaha however the board opted to sign Pepe instead. Bar some flashes of brilliance especially in cup competitions, Pepe hasn't been great at all under Emery and Arteta plus the emergence of Saka, Smith Rowe, Martinelli and Trossard has reduced his game time. Even at Nice he was poor. Pepe joined the wrong club at the wrong time to evolve his game. A sad case of the most expensive African player ever.
It's easy to forget that Nicolas Pepe is still an Arsenal player. When he made that big money move to Arsenal from Lille, there was a lot of excitement around his transfer, because he had great goalscoring qualities and shooting, excellent dribbling a great change of pace, many thought that he would head to Arsenal as an impactful player in 2019. It's crazy to me, that he hasn't been discussed nearly enough for how big of a disaster he has been for Arsenal and he's one of the biggest flops in football history. In his first season, he underwhelmed even if he showed flashes of brilliance, it did feel as if he was weighed down by this huge transfer fee, and he just didn't play well in his debut season, his second season was mixed and he hit a purple patch of form towards the end of that season where he was scoring goals and he looked lively and it looked like Nicolas Pepe was finally coming good for Arsenal. The following season, due to the emergence of Bukayo Saka, and inconsistent performances, he spent most of the season on the bench, and then even when he was on the field, he barely performed and that's been the story of his Arsenal career, where he's had great moments and then others where he's nonexistent on the field and they paid so much money for him years ago. Last season, he was sent back to Ligue 1 on loan where there he was poor again and now that he's back at Arsenal, he's not in Mikel Arteta's plans next season and the club is considering terminating his contract altogether and this was such a bad move for both parties.
For Arsenal, they absolutely got this piece of transfer business wrong on all fronts. They overpaid for Nicolas Pepe, because before this big money move, he had one standout season with Lille, where he scored 20+ goals and provided 10+ assists while playing in Ligue 1 and that convinced them to pay 80+ million for him. When a club pays a lot of money for a player, there's a lot of expectation around you from the fans, media, pundits, etc because many will question if you were really worth it and is good enough at the elite level, because the premier league is a different ballgame compared to what he was doing in Ligue 1 in his final season with Lille. That area, the expectations to deliver because of the transfer fee, affected him in his first season at Arsenal and wasn't able to string together a consistent run of performances and after the arrival of Mikel Arteta, 18 months into his tenure there, he saw the flaws of his game and the lack of consistency in his performances and he knew that he couldn't rely on him long term and didn't fit the project of the club, hence why he spent a lot of time on the bench and found game time harder and harder to come by and 3 years later just on loan after they paid that much money for him, where was he, in Ligue 1 again. He wasn't a good fit for this team and the money Arsenal paid for him was just too much. In the last 18 months, we've seen the excellence of Bukayo Saka for Arsenal, as he's scoring goals, making assists, he's dazzled on the right wing and is an important player for this Arsenal team and he's set to hold down that right wing position for the next decade, and this is what Nicolas Pepe was supposed to be doing regularly when he was brought to Arsenal and now we're seeing an academy player in Saka doing what Pepe should've done. It's unlikely that he'll ever get back to the player he was before this Arsenal transfer after he leaves there but this was just a terrible transfer and he went from expensive player to expensive flop, forgotten about and not wanted by Arsenal anymore and also any other club as well.
So basically he was Barcelona's Dembele.
theres rumors we want money for him and are in a stalemate
As an Arsenal supporter, I was so excited to sign Nico Pepe. I really thought we had signed our own version of Ryhad Mahrez. Unfortunate that it didn't work out, but I will always have a soft spot for Nico after his contributions in the FA Cup victory. But little did I know we had our own little StarBoy coming through in Pepe's exact position via Hale End … ⭐
He definitely not a flop. Matter of fact, he was one of the best finishers and technical players in Arsenal. I think he suffered the unfortunate circumstance of a club struggling to transition.
I think it all boiled down to the fact that there was nefarious business in relation to his deal that the club wanted to get away from. I still hold that he's one of the best flops I've seen. Yeah, maybe he could've worked harder to convince people he should be a mainstay in the squad, but it's also hard to gain that momentum when you can't get more than three starts no matter how well you play. It just seemed at times that there was no room for him at Arsenal regardless of how he played.
If Pepe was a Chelsea player he would probably have been sold for 20m to Milan or something. Hes bad but hes no worse than Pulisic. The only reason he was signed was because of Raul and some questionable relationships he had. Im just saying he got sacked very quickly after signing Pepe.
this should be interesting…!