Just turned 24, he had scored 35 Ligue 1 goals in the previous two years for Lille from the right wing. We had signed one of the most in demand attackers in Europe.
At 6′ 2″, Pepe had pace to burn and a box full of tricks. He also had a wand of a left foot. It felt like he had all the physical and technical attributes to be a Premier League superstar.
“Arsenal did one hell of a deal,” former Lille owner Gerard Lopez told talkSPORT. “They got a player that other people wanted and they got a player whom one club [Napoli] were offering more money for.
“It was Pepe’s management team that asked us to go to Arsenal and so we accepted slightly less money than we would have got somewhere else.”
So what happened?
Tought first season
In his first season at Arsenal, Nicolas Pepe was inconsistent. But so was Arsenal.
A lot of fans point to his “scintillating form” under Unai Emery, but he only actually scored two league goals before the Spanaird in November.
He finished the season with just 5 league goals having played under 3 different managers.
Arsenal finished 8th that season, and the team had struggled throughout. But Pepe took a brunt of the criticism having joined us for such a big transfer fee.
Arteta-Ball
Mikel Arteta is often criticised for not getting the best out of Nicolas Pepe. But in the Frenchman’s second season at the club (and Arteta’s first fall season), he scored 16 goals across all competitions. 10 of these came in the Premier League.
Whilst his output was decent, it did not tell the whole story.
Pepe often drifted through games, doing very little. He would then, on occassion, pop up with a goal. This is not how Arteta wanted to play.
You look at Arsenal’s front line now – Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus and Grabiel Martinelli – and they all work very hard for the team. They do not play on the fringes of the game waiting to get the ball. They look to move across the pitch and find the ball themselves.
Pepe showed in his second season that he was perhaps the wrong sort of player for Arsenal.
At Lille, he could neglect his defensive duties, and often hung about on the half-way line as Lille looked to play counter attacking football. This gave him time and space in the opponents half to unleash his ability.Englishman Bukayo Saka ahead of Pepe. They saw Saka as an inferior player and an example of Arteta “playing his favourites”.
Arteta (and many Arsenal fans) saw Saka for what he was. A potential world class player, and he responded with 11 league goals and 7 assists.
I do not think it can be underestimated about how Saka impacted Pepe’s career.
It must be very disheartening for a 26-year-old to lose his place to a then 19-year-old after hitting double figures in the leage
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