Nicolas Pepe’s move to Besiktas is now off, and the player’s agent is now said to be in want of talks with Arsenal as they look to cut up his current contract.
The winger became the club’s record signing when joining from Lille back in 2019, but he struggled to find the kind of form you would expect for such a fee. In fact he never really managed to nail down a regular starting spot in our side in his opening three years with the club before eventually being shipped out on loan last term.
Since returning to north London, he has been training away from the first-team, with the intention clear that he is not expected to play any part in our upcoming campaign, nor is he to still be with the club when the transfer window closes. Recent reports had claimed that he was in talks over a potential move to Turkish Super Lig side Besiktas, but the player has since turned his back on such a move.
GFFN (as stated by Football.London) now insist that Nico’s representatives are to meet with the Gunners’ hierarchy in the coming days to try and find a solution, with the hope that they can cut up their current deal to aid his search for his next club.
It seems crazy that our former record signing could well leave the club for nothing this summer, inside the initial contract which he signed when joining from the Ligue 1 club. The worst thing is that he wasn’t even ‘that’ bad, but he never really settled into our team before the likes of Emile Smith Rowe, Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka all flourished ahead of him to end any hopes of him playing in our side.
Pepe would improve a number of top clubs across Europe, and you would assume that it would be easy for him to return to Ligue 1 where he was so prolific previously, but why we cannot find someone willing to pay a minimal fee for his signature is a frustrating thought.
Patrick
Still can’t figure out what is wrong with keeping Pepe as backup for Saka.
Because he is nowhere near good enough. His perfs were getting worse
so, it is not better to give the player another chance using the 40M instead on a big man upfront?
@ Silentstan
Nicolas Pepe could return to life in the Saudis league, win win situation for all parties.
Irony is not even Saudi want Pepe. That is his fall from disgrace. Now he wants to be paid his remaining contract money and walk away free. Thats insane.
I reckon pepe will improve once again when given chance. it’s so sad for arsenal to just allow him live acrimoniously considering what he costed them. Just pardon him, failure to that, he will follow the likes of Ozil and aubameyang
He needs to go and no paying him £140,000 a week for another year isn’t a good idea. He has no place in the team (no he isn’t even decent backup anymore) and couldn’t even do well back in France. There’s a reason nobody wants him and everyone has learned a serious lesson about making signings based on YouTube videos
He wouldn’t make a Sunday team better. One trick pony. Pretend to go right cut in on his left. Must be the easiest man in world football to mark. On top of that he is thick as 2 short planks or he would have worked out to go outside the full back sometimes to keep him guessing. Biggest waste of money ever. Cut up his contract and get him out of the club asap.
I think we can use him as a backup for Saka for the season. He could still be useful to us. He’s no where near worth £72 million but he is a decent player
Some comments on this thread are disgusting.
Honestly speaking, I didn’t even know what to say but I think some of the fans are basically the reason we can’t even sell Pepe. The boy is not even as bad as Anthony & Mudryk they all cried for when it was like Arsenal missed out on them.
It’s a shame we can’t support and rate our own players.
👍
Could someone explain to me how making Pepe train on his own, helps the club in any way whatsoever?
This seems to be the tactics used by MA, when he ostracised Ozil and Aubemeyang and that ended up costing the club money while losing out on any transfer money.
It seems our management team are clueless when a player doesn’t fit into the system… they just chuck them aside like garbage and don’t even try to recycle them in order to get some kind of return for their salaries.
Arteta and Edu need to work a lot harder in this area and remember that they are human beings, not just cast offs to be humiliated in this way.
👍Starting to get a track record, regarding alienation of players.
Pepe and his team are the ones frustrating his move from Arsenal. So he was banished. It seems he is resentful at Arteta and I don’t blame him. What did he really do wrong? 3 clubs were ready to pay the 72mil. He chose Arsenal and we were happy. We should have continued to play him somewhat and by now would have gotten up to 30mil for him.