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