Kevin Campbell has revealed that Nicolas Pepe is the man who does the most work after training of the current Arsenal squad.
The Ivory Coast international joined the club from Lilly in a club record move in the summer of 2019, but hasn’t managed to find the level that is expected of him as of yet.
The 25 year-old has been in-and-out of the first-team since joining the club, with him yet to impress in long spells.
Pepe has returned to form recently however, and is staking a claim for more regular minutes, and Campbell is one who would not be surprised by his resurgence given the inside knowledge he retained on the forward.
“Something that I learned is there is one player at the club who does the most work after training, and that’s Nicolas Pepe,” Campbell told Highbury Squad’s Youtube channel.
“One-on-one with the manager, explaining what he wants, working at positioning, receiving. Now we are starting to see Pepe look more like a consistent player. Hard work pays off.”
If Pepe is the kind of player who will work hard to get the level that he wants/needs to be at, then he certainly sounds like he has the right mentality to overcome his struggles of recent months, and his form lately only moves to back that up.
Will Pepe become one of our most important players if he continues to work hard as he appears to be?
Patrick
Hard work truly pays off, hope he adds consistency to it.
If his confidence is built up and hes used rightly, he would be a terror to epl defenders..
Recall his first game against Liverpool.. He showed glimpses of excellence.. And almost scored… Unfortunately afterwards emre was using him wrong, coupled with abuse from fans.. His form nose dived..
Imo.. Pepe will be most deadly, if the ball is given him inside the opponents box 18..his trickery can fetch at least 5 penalties before season ends and his left foot is a wonder to behold inside the box 18.
True about his form. His numbers were okay for first season in a terrible team. Fans attacked him…and then his confidence dropped.
His attitude is positive, working hard and his performances this season are improving accordingly. I agree with Nero and Ba that Pepe’s first season was solid, despite the unrealistic expectations due to his transfer fee, given new team, League, country and culture.
Hopefully Arteta can show more faith to build his confidence with more playing time. Too often in the past he has been benched following good performances.