Nicolas Pepe may have helped himself to a goal and assist as Arsenal beat Molde 4-1 at the Emirates but the Ivorian still needs to work on his consistency, according to Mikel Arteta.
Playing in his 53rd game for the Gunners, the winger, who joined for a club-record £72 million in the summer of 2019, took his goal and assist tally to 11 and 12 respectively.
While his numbers are creeping in the right direction, the fact that he’s started only one game in the Premier League this season highlights that he’s yet to earn the full trust of the boss.
Asked what the player has to do to get more game time, Arteta said: “Consistency. Throughout the game, throughout 90 minutes, every ball, in every action and every time he’s on the ball in the final third he [needs to] make a difference. And do it more and more and more.
“The final product has to be better, not just from him but if you want to become a top top team and score many more goals then it’s something we have to put higher demands on at the moment.
“Today he scored a really good goal and got an assist and he can do more. I think he’s on the right path.”
The boss went on to make clear that he wants that consistency from all his attackers not just Pepe and new boy Willian, on whom the spotlight has also fallen in recent weeks after a couple of low-key performances.
“It’s not just Willian or Nico, I think in general consistency-wise in the final third, with the quality that we have, we have to finish more things better. We can improve a lot.
“That goes for every player, if Nico scores three goals then his aim has to be to score 10. Willian the same, three assists? He needs 10. If we don’t have that mindset then we won’t become the top team that we want to be.”
In the same press conference, the boss admitted that his side is not scoring enough goals but stressed that he and the squad have, in the last couple of weeks, turned their attention to improving on that front.
Is it me, or did we way overpay for Pepe? He looks like a street player with a great finish or a moment of brilliance. Otherwise, there are too many holes in his game.
No, you’re the first person to make this observation.
Nor the last, but we’re in “the now” not “the then” so have to make the best of things.
Um.. Who you quoting there buddy? Your imaginary friend?
Maybe it would be easier to “make the best of things” if fans got behind their team instead of complaining all the time
We overpaid, no question, but that’s also down to Raul and his shady band of agents driving up his price. But I think we also paid for his age. He has the years in him to improve those sides of his game, but at times it can be really frustrating to see him play. It is one of the problems with flair players…when they do things and they don’t come off, you want them to go back to the basics, and sometimes their basic game is a bit lacking.
I am sure you are one of those who were telling us how useless Elneny is, but now climbing on top of chimneys shouting about how good he is.
In fact, I’m not one those. Now you must be questioning your deduction skills.
And there’s enough in my comment to suggest that I believe that Pepe can become better. You obviously ignored that part.
I dont get the basic thing being lacking. Dude’s been playing football for what? 20 years? Surely he knows the basics. Pass move block etc.
Weird thing is, even I know the basics as you’ve described it. But I’m not a footballer. 🙁
We overpayed for Pepe due to clerical error. Lille accepted a fee of 7.2 million. Raul made a typo and wrote a check for 72 million. Raul is no longer with us. We had a simillar issue with Saliba. We hope this is an area the club has fixed moving forward.
We fans forced the club to buy Pepe. I remember of so many fans saying: Buy him whatever it costs. Palace was asking same money for Zaha and the club preferred the younger player.
We’ve fixed it. Wr sacked that contract dude for missing these decimals.
Kroenke got his London lawyer to look into it & the wheeler dealer was out the door in a couple of weeks. Arsenal have signed Willian on a 3year contract in Pepe’s position so the obvious answer is to cut their losses & swop him for Aouar
“Overpay”? We were ripped off!! Pepe is the biggest waste of money in our history. He isn’t worth 10 million let alone 72. He can’t even take a corner! We were charged Harrods prices for a Primark product!
William is starting to worry me too: he didn’t look very interested yesterday. Sad when you consider he’s on a million quid a month.
He isn’t worth £72million on the overall showing so far – that’s surely beyond argument. Clearly we can’t just give Pepe up as a “bad job” though – for one thing, we’d probably make a very big loss on any sale and for another, we paid for him in instalments so he’d still be costing us a small fortune even after he left (if he did). I think he can improve, there’s evidence in his Europa League performances of that. Whether he’ll ever achieve a level anywhere near justifying that huge fee is just unknown at present. Arteta will need… Read more »
Yeah but you don’t feel comfortable with any signings or sales or players or managers. I think you’d prefer it if Auba was the only player on the field. And even then you’d probably get angry if he scored under 8 goals a game.
Love child of Santori and fat gooner.
Rubbish (with a capital ‘R’). The LAST thing I want is another player who can contribute to the passing horseshoe of drivel. I want a bit of chaos and drive and he provides it. Inconsistency for me is the biggest job of the manager. It’s like all the old criticism of Arshavin because of some missing ingredient of total consistency. These players are game changers if managed correctly. They can literally turn a game. Watch a reel of Arshavin’s goals for Arsenal and ask yourself the last time you felt we had players that could generate that kind of excitement.… Read more »
Alexis over Arshavin any day! Now Saka and Martinelli
I agree with you 100% on Arshavin. After being played as a centre forward and performing dismally, he was never the same player. I blame Wenger for Arshavin’s failures, although I am a big Wenger fan
Arshavin was affected by football for his national team and I believe that he lost the will to keep going.
Go watch rugby mahn, (the guy scored a goal and come up with an assist that truly made us win the game- without considering the two own goals by the opposition.
He’s a poor mans gervinho.
But he’s better than Sanogo.
We haven’t have a lot of luck with the O players in recent years, have we?
In my opinion, it’s not always the player’s fault, but can be the manager. If the manager does not select you to play, it gets into your mind that you are not good enough. I think Pepe as well as Laca are having confidence issues due to not being trusted by the manager. How do you feel if you are a world class centre forward and the manager plays a false no.9? I think Arteta should start managing his resources for the entire season not just one match. The war is won over the entire season.
No ones going to pay even 30m if we try to sell him
I kind of wish we spent that money on Zaha.
I’m not sure how Pepe is to score more if he rarely plays. It is hard to gain any consistency.
He mentions what he means by consistency – consistency in performance throughout the length of a game, and not just scoring goals and assists. Which is a fair thing to expect, I’d say.
But we have so few players that score goals. When the team was successful, it was peppered with players that contributed regularly.
I would say a goal or assist is worth a thousand harmless passes.
But not when the manager’s trying to improve the overall play of the team, going forward. The odd goal/assist from Pepe will be peppering over cracks, both for the team and the player. I think its good to demand more from Pepe, he can only improve.
Peppering the cracks? That’s either getting the phrase “Papering over the cracks” a bit wrong, OR, it was a damn sight cleverer than anything I’ve ever managed on here.
I’m going with the latter. I liked it.
He’s just a shit Nani. How everyone expected Nani to be the next ronaldo of he could manage to do this or do that and buckle up and whatever. But he was basically shit. So is Pepe.
It’s true that Pepe needs to stay focused throughout the game and should stay 30-35% more central to have more chances too assist or sore.
Off topic – “Jose Mourinho uneasy with Arsenal’s Albert Stuivenberg coaching Gareth Bale. The fact that one of the Wales coaches is also an Arsenal coach does not make me very comfortable,”’ said Mourinho. 😂
Utter twat though he is, he does have a point.
I’m sure that the spuds aren’t very comfortable being managed by a twat who’d far rather be back at Chelski.
Makes me laugh every time I think about it.
No, I’m actually quite sure they’re happy to be managed by a twat.
I’m comfortable with whatever makes Mourinho uncomfortable.
Yes, I think (hope) by now that most of us realise and accept that the club substantially overpaid for Pepe. How that happened, and whether it was linked to any subsequent high placed departure(s), is speculation which has appeared in various press reports. We are where we are. I think Pepe has probably been more effective/consistent in the Europa League than in the PL. If so, then we’re looking to him along with and others to step up and, in particular, plug the gap during Auba’s goal “drought” (albeit only a temporary one). Because Pepe hasn’t – for a variety… Read more »
Paid too much for Pepe. 72m weighs on our transfer windows with 15m committed each window for an inconsistent player. Add Saliba at 27m for a19 yr old player still deem not ready to start you get the idea Sanlehi was out of his depth…no surpise he was let go. We still have not made wide decisions in market even without Sanlehi but likely commitment to Willian at 22K per week for a 32yr old over 3 seasons the final straw. Too many people prefer to live out of reality. …granted Pepe can improve and get better and hopefully does… Read more »
All this talk of having overpaid for Pepe are confusing, to be honest. At the time, I’m sure Napoli were willing to match that figure should we have hesitated. This isn’t me trying to say Pepe has been a 72million pounds player for Arsenal, but he certainly was for Lille, where a team that was built around his magic and spontaneity went from being relegation threatened a year prior, to the closest challengers to the PSG side boasting players like Di Maria, Neymar, Cavani and Mbappe. In that league season, Pepe, with Lille, arguably outperformed every single one of these… Read more »
Well said.
Should have spent the money on Zaha
Like a lot of people, including both Andrews on the podcast, I thought Pepe had a terrible first half, but was better in the second. But I re-read Andrew Allen’s match report, and here are the things he says about the FIRST half: “[Nketiah], found by Pepe, tried a dinked effort that cleared the Molde keeper but was heading wide … Cebellos . . . nearly finding Pepe with a penetrating ball through the middle of the Molde defence.” “Patient build up saw us work an opening for Pepe, who from the left, played a teasing ball across the six-yard… Read more »
Pepe is almost as good as Gervinho. We should resign him.
Fact is we need goals. So we put the most productive front 3- pepe saka auba.
If we are having defenders and 2 DMs, hell we sure can afford to have more attacking power in the front 3.
I like the way that Arteta is encouraging the players to go after 10 assists or goals per game. Miedema has shown us that it’s not impossible!
need more consistency from Arteta, he plays certain players together you think yes, then you realise he takes someone out you want in that weakens the starting 11 every time. If you get Lacazette and Auba you think yes Pepe and you get Saka YOU THINK YES GABRIEL THEN YOU GET HOLDING!!! ANNOYING PLAY THE BEST TEAM