Nicolas Pepe has opened up about his torrid time as an Arsenal player, during which he struggled to justify being the Gunners’ most expensive signing.
The Gunners signed the winger following a stunning season at Lille, despite then-manager Unai Emery preferring Wilfried Zaha from Crystal Palace.
Arsenal broke their transfer record to sign Pepe, but the Ivorian was unfit for the Premier League and largely failed to impress during his time at the club.
He played under two permanent managers at Arsenal but never demonstrated that he was good enough to significantly help the team.
Ultimately, the Gunners cut their losses and allowed him to leave the club for a cheap fee.
Pepe faced constant criticism and has now revealed that he contemplated quitting the game due to his struggles.
He said, as quoted by the Daily Mail:
‘It also came from the media or from certain members of the club. They don’t realise that it can affect the mental state, the family and it affects performance.
‘The only people who have always supported me are the Arsenal fans.
‘At Arsenal, I suffered a kind of trauma, as if my passion had been ripped away from me, I had a disgust for football. I doubted myself to the point that I thought about quitting everything.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
Pepe is one of the worst players that we have signed in recent memory, and the Ivorian will be delighted that he has left the club for good.
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Can I say the JAO stinks and is so disrespectful to a player that has just been through the wringer mentally. What a callous and heartless summing up.
Agree, and only close to being true if major consideration is given to his monetary costs.
Couldn’t agree more. It wasn’t a successful move but he didn’t deserve to be pilloried in that way
Agree, Pepe wasn’t even that bad a player he just wasn’t worth the price/wage or cut out for the Prem at a decent club. Raul as it seems given he was sacked shortly after takes the blame for the price/wage. Nelson has never reached Pepe’s heights for instance. Outside of Arsenal Anthony/Sancho have been significantly worse at Man Utd.
To be fair to JAO the article wasn’t unreasonable and the opinion at the end was in my view just very poorly written as opposed to deliberately malicious.
Agree, that summing up was very cold and heartless. And absolutely unnecessary. Players and managers are highly paid professionals, but money can’t mend everything. They are humans and being paid professionals doesn’t give an excuse to treat them inhumanely. I guess some things never change with us humans, since Gladiator fights to the sports of the modern era, only the skin has changed.
It’s really not that bad – it’s incorrect imo (one of our worst transfers due to the fee *we* decided to pay, but definitely not one of the worst players we’ve signed), or more likely badly worded, but hardly an outrageously cruel thing to say. It’s a negative opinion about his professional ability, it’s not personal.
To clarify, it is a poor summation, but it’s not cruel or overtly mean spirited.
He didn’t asked is to pay that amount of money to get him we are just reckless to have gone for at that cost and blame those management of the club at that time for been clueless.