Football writer Charles Watts has cast doubt over the future of Arsenal man Nicolas Pepe after claiming the winger’s time with the club is looking ‘terminal’.
The Ivorian has only made five Premier League starts this season, and was left on the bench as an unused substitute on Monday night.
The Gunners fell to a disappointing 2-1 away defeat at the hands of Everton in their last match. Martin Odegaard had opened the scoring, but goals from Richarlison and Demarai Gray turned the match around in its latter stages.
Despite Arsenal struggling to create much going forward – they managed just three shots on target – Mikel Arteta opted against bringing Pepe on from the bench.
Should Mikel Arteta play Nicolas Pepe more often?
Yes
No
In his place, Eddie Nketiah, Nuno Tavares, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were all called on as substitutes. This is the fifth league game in a row where the 26-year-old has failed to feature, and it left Watts questioning his future.
While speaking on his YouTube channel, he said: “When you’re struggling for goals, when you need goals, and you’re not playing him – and you’re bringing on a player [Nketiah] who is going to go for free at the end of the season ahead of him – it says an awful lot about where Nicolas Pepe is right now in Mikel Arteta’s plans.
“And you’ve got to think it’s looking pretty poor for Pepe in terms of his long-term future at Arsenal.
“Because we’ve seen Mikel Arteta do this to players before, he kind of freezes them out when you’re not expecting, they don’t play and then suddenly they come back into the fold.
“But you look at Pepe, he’s not playing at the moment, he’s got the Africa Cup of Nations coming up, when he’s gonna disappear for a few weeks, suddenly we’re going to be in February and he’s barely played any football.
“And I think that says an awful lot about what Nicolas Pepe’s long-term future at Arsenal is. It’s beginning to feel a little bit terminal when it comes to him and Arsenal at the moment.”
TIF Thoughts on Nicolas Pepe and Arsenal…
Pepe has managed just five minutes of Premier League football since he last started a game – which was a 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace back in October.
He has just one league goal contribution this season and it doesn’t seem as if he will get an awful lot of chances to improve on that. Opportunities will be limited further by the Africa Cup of Nations, when Pepe goes away with the Ivory Coast in January, as Watts mentions.
Arsenal paid a reported fee of £72m for the winger back in 2019. It’s hard to imagine they will get anywhere close to that kind of money if his future in north London really is set to come to an end. Arteta’s unwillingness to use him certainly makes it look hard to see his price rising or his career with the Gunners reigniting.
In other news: ‘Mikel must be thinking’ – Charles Watts claims player is ‘beginning to cost’ Arsenal