How do Arsenal solve the £72m Pepe problem?
Ivorian is last man standing of much-hyped front three with Aubameyang and Lacazette, but could be hardest to shift
Speaking in the corridors of Barcelona’s Camp Nou, after a pre-season friendly in August 2019, Arsenal defender Nacho Monreal summarised the squad’s excitement following the arrival of Nicolas Pepe.
Pepe had joined from Lille a few days earlier, for a club record £72 million, and for fans and players alike there was a genuine belief that he would take Arsenal to another level. They already had Pierreemerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, so the addition of Pepe made their front line – on paper, at least – one of the most formidable in Europe.
“We are so lucky to have these players,” Monreal said. “We are talking about some of the best players at this moment.
“We need to enjoy having them, and we need to play for them because they make the difference.”
Three years, two managers (including interim Freddie Ljungberg) and one pandemic later, the great £175million experiment has been almost completely disassembled. As a collective, their legacy is one of unfulfilled potential. Aside from a few flourishes, such as the successful FA Cup run of 2020, they have rarely “made the difference” together as Monreal envisaged.
Aubameyang has gone, having lost his form and fallen out with Mikel Arteta, and Lacazette is heading to Lyon following the expiry of his contract. Only Pepe remains, and that is not expected to be the case for much longer. He changed his agent last month and is on the hunt for another club after not starting a match in any competition for Arsenal since December.
It is a measure of Arsenal’s difficulties in the transfer market, and a reflection of the salaries they offered these three, that Lacazette (signed for a then club record £46.5million in July 2017) and Aubameyang (signed for a then club record £56million in January 2018) have both left the club for nothing.
The key question now is whether the same will be true of Pepe. The 27-year-old has two years remaining on his deal, so there is theoretically some value for Arsenal to extract, but his wages present a familiar problem. Pepe is believed to earn around £140,000 per week, and it is hard to see many buyers being willing or able to match that.
Post-covid, there simply is not much money to spend in the European market.
There is no shortage of cash in the Premier League, of course, but
Arsenal have spent much of the past few years trying to sell to the Continent, and as a result, they have consistently struggled to generate significant fees for their players.
Only the players they have sold to English teams (Emiliano Martinez to Aston Villa and Joe Willock to Newcastle, for example) provided hefty transfer fees. Others have been loaned out to Europe, sometimes with relatively low option-to-buy agreements, while some have simply had their contracts terminated.
Arsenal do not need to sell players to recruit this summer, with the club willing to invest despite their failure to qualify for the Champions League. Manchester City’s Gabriel Jesus and Leicester’s Youri Tielemans remain top targets. It would certainly help, though, if they could raise some money for Pepe and remove him from the wage bill.
It is possible that he could leave on loan, in the hope that a successful season elsewhere might prompt another club to buy him next summer. At this early stage of the window, that seems a likely scenario.
Such an approach would take him into the final year of his deal at Arsenal, however, and could present problems next summer if he does not perform well. It is a deli
cate situation, and the sort of issue that Arsenal have routinely mishandled in recent years — as evidenced by the departures of both Aubameyang and Lacazette.
Pepe is the last man standing of that much-hyped trio, and the most disappointing of the three.
If Arsenal can find a way to effectively rid themselves of him in the coming weeks, it will represent the official end of the previous era.
Pepe, Aubameyang, Lacazette: the front three that never really was, and the forward line that never justified the huge investment.
The record signings of 2017, 2018 and 2019 have no place at the club in 2022, which says it all about that period of Arsenal’s recent history and the lessons that must be learnt as they continue to rebuild under Arteta’s watch.