Former Arsenal flop sheds more light on his move to the Gunners.
It might just seem like yesterday when Arsenal broke their transfer record to bring a player in, well I’m not talking about the recent acquisition of Declan Rice but referring to the signing of a player who broke the record four years prior. Nicolas Pepe was a £72million arrival from Lille in the summer of 2019, he was signed off the back of an impressive campaign with Les Dogues where he scored an impressive total of 22 goals while laying on a further 11 assists.
His contributions saw Lille finish the 2018/19 campaign second on the log, only missing out on the Ligue 1 title to a very impressive PSG side. This impressive campaign earned him a move to the Gunners, but we all know what transpired from there. The Ivorian just couldn’t cope with the burden of the Transfer fee, he just didn’t fit in and failed to be a superstar despite showing glimpses in his time at the club. He moved on loan to Nice for the 2022/23 season after falling out of favour in the previous campaign, he eventually got his contract terminated in the summer of 2023 before he moved to Trabzonspor on a free transfer. Now the Ivorian is a Villareal player after spending a season in Turkey.
He sat down with the Athletic recently where he shed more light about his time at Arsenal and particularly the pressure that came with his huge transfer fee. In the exclusive interview, he said: “When a club pays that much for you, the little details don’t matter, I was young; it was the first time I had left France to play abroad. I had to adapt in lots of ways, but people don’t see that. They only see what happens on the pitch.
“Automatically, the first player to be criticised is the one that cost a lot of money. You have to be getting goals and assists, goals and assists. People expected 30, 35, 40 goals a season. But it was only Messi and Ronaldo who did that.
“Arsenal spent a lot of money on me and I paid the price for it.”
It’s nice to finally get to hear his perspective on things, especially after all the barrage of criticism he was receiving when he was at the club. What we would have been disappointed with in this interview with the Athletic however was the fact that he seemingly conceded he was playing for the manager and not the club. When speaking on how he initially joined the Gunners, he said: “I had a call with Carlo Ancelotti, who was Napoli coach at the time, It lasted five minutes. Half an hour later, I received another call, this time from Unai Emery (Arsenal’s manager at the time). It lasted an hour.
“He told me exactly what he was looking for, everything he would expect from me if I joined Arsenal. He spoke about tactics, what he wanted from me, where he was going to play me, how I could expect to improve under him. Loads of detail. And although he’s not a great French speaker, he spoke to me in French for a whole hour. It was a small thing, but it impressed me. I felt his desire to work with me.”
“That’s why I signed. It wasn’t the club, it was the coach. When someone wants you like that, you go.”
The fact he said he didn’t come because of the club shows why we shouldn’t have signed him in the first place, this shouldn’t be repeated again, if it does then we might find ourselves with another wasted investment!
BENJAMIN
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Well that blows the theory that Emery had Pepe foisted upon him – unless there is another explanation? Quite a surprising interview it has to be said. I do accept that the expectations were rather high but that was only to be expected when that amount is being spent
It completely blows the “Emery was not supported like Arteta has been. Players like Pepe were foisted on to him even if he did not want them. He wanted Nzozi and Zaha but was given Pepe, blah blah..”.
@Goonster
How exactly was Unai supported to the same degree as Arteta.?
I was just pointing out the talking point that has been regurgitated by the Usual suspects about how The Pepe signing was the obvious example of Emery being given player he did not want.
That has been the parroted talking point even if there was no evidence to suggest that players like Pepe were forced onto Emery.
And Emery was not backed because most of you guys made it absolutely impossible for him to have enough time to clear out the deadwood and rebuild the team to his own specification. He was mocked, abused, sworn at, disrespected and hounded out by the same individuals that suddenly have found a soft spot for Emery in the last 2 or seasons.
That’s all..
👍
It’s not so much a theory as it is emery’s version of events, I thought?
Could have been that he’d asked for zaha, but when told we were going for Pepe, Emery tried to make the best of it. Could even see it as him doing his duty for the club (helping to convince a transfer target to join). Even if not his first choice, Pepe was coming out of an extremely successful season, so I imagine emery saw him as a player of high potential, at least.
An interesting angle there, Davi and definitely a possibility
Emery would have known both Pepe and Guendouzi as well as Saliba during his time at PSG I would have thought, so I do find it strange that he wouldn’t have had any input at all.
I still dont buy this notion that Emery had no say when it came to potential signings. To me that’s ridiculous.
How can a serious club appoint a manager to take over from Wenger but then straight up tell him that he will have no say on player recruitment?
To me that has always been ridiculous.
Emery failed because he showed weakness when dealing with our overly pampered, overly paid, overly worshipped primadonna players. And that was his downfall..
@Goonster
Unai was the “coach”, not the manager. Had he the backing of the board to get rid of the divisive elements in the team, I’m sure he would have.
As it is NY👍
Jus saying eh NY?! 😂
So Emery was not our manager? We only appointed him as a coach. Right?
So we should stop referring to him as a former Arsenal manager and just refer to him as “The former Arsenal coach”.
Isn’t it?
I just find it to be so funny that all of a sudden the same individuals that hounded Emery out because he dared question their favourite divisive players etc are now so appalled at the board not backing him during that time. Even if it was the same people that were demanding for him to be fired back them.
As I keep saying, this place sometimes makes me lose brain cells 🤯due to the how people will contradict themselves consistently on nearly every issue without even caring or having any self awareness. They will argue for opposite sides of a given situation at any given period of time if it suits their agenda at that time.
One minute they are mocking Emery, encouraging their favourite players to disrespect him and demanding that the club should fire him with immediate effect. But then a few years later they are the same people acting so appalled at the club’s higher ups not supporting Emery back then.
🤦♂️😊
Of course it would be really odd for someone with the profile of Emery at the time to have no say at all.
It is also important to consider various other factors. Pepe is younger and at the time it was felt that he had yet to reach his prime. Zaha was considered to be in his prime and may have cost significantly more.
Emery may have preferred Zaha but it is not that unusual for head coaches or managers to fail to get their first choice options.
@David
You are preaching to the choir here. That’s my take on the whole thing.
There is no way that Emery accepted becoming Arsenal coach / manager after being told that he will have absolutely no say in player dealings.
But many have convinced themselves that that was the case. All because Emery tanked and showed weakness. Hence why he got sacked. He was the wrong man at the wrong time for Arsenal at that time.
Davi, Pepe was not Emerys first choice. We all know who he wanted. Wether Pepe was his 2nd 3rd or none, as a manager who wanted that type of player, he was obviously doing his job. No conspiracy theories or BS, he needed a wide player, so when his first choice was not afforded him, he obviously spoke with Pepe. No revelations there.
At the time Reggie, wasn’t it the case that Palace wanted in excess of £100m for Zaha? Having looked back, it was the case that Zaha was Emery’s choice, but that could be classed as a manager/coach not being able to the land the player he wanted which frequently happened and still does. On the face of it Pepe had done well and I believe he was signed shortly after Emery failed to land a top4 place so he knew he needed a tried and tested premier league player and not a punt
His signings were a mixture of the very good and the disappointing. I take it he gets no credit for Saliba, Martinelli and Tierney so that was a masterstroke by the Board and he had no input at all?
So the Usual suspects want to tell us that when Arteta also missed out on his first choice targets such as “ Locatelli, Vlahovic, Mudryk, Seska, Lisandro, Caicedo etc meant that he was nor supported hence ended up with second choice players he did not want.
Just because Emery missed out on two players he wanted does not all of a sudden translate to him not being supported. Because that would mean that every manager that never got any first choice player they wanted was not supported by the board. Which means every manager.
Isn’t it?😊
Sue, I think that Zaha was keen on a move to Arsenal and I think if Arsenal persued him, he may have forced a more realistic price. From what I understand, there was people in Arsenal who didn’t want Zaha. Emery wasn’t one of them. I don’t think he was allowed or had the influence that Arteta has.
Fair dinks
But you avoided to respond to my argument that Emery must have had some input. If he didn’t then it needed the person who was responsible for choosing the players to sit in the dugout with him.
By the way, Liverpool don’t exactly look bang average tonight. 😉
There was a different set up then and I don’t think he had much input. He worked like that in Spain. No Liverpool don’t look average but Real do🤣
I will ask you Sue. How many Liverpool players would you swap man for man on the pitch from last night. You then might get my drift.
Reggie
I responded to a Ken1945 post to Bertie in another article
In a nutshell I think Arsenal are the better team but it is more marginal than I think you think. A lot of success is garnered through team effort and not necessarily a group of 11 stellar players.
Anyway I hope you read it.
Oh well, at least we’ve learned a little more.
I think there’s still more to learn about how Arsenal was “persuaded” (and by whom) to pay such a huge fee and big wages, which is often forgotten, in the first place for a relatively unknown player who was not in great demand by other clubs (“interest” perhaps but not demand).
Whether we’ll ever get to the bottom of it, who knows. What we do know is that – all in all – Pepe cost Arsenal around £100m and that was the cost some years ago now.
A little nieve Benjamin to think that any player would say to a club willing to break their transfer record to sign him, that he would only be joining because he liked the manager and not the club!!
How was the club to know what his thoughts were if he didn’t divulge them?
As NY pointed out, UE was the coach and eight players were signed during the summer he joined, so how would he have had time to assess the playing staff and identify who he wanted?
Gazidis was in charge of transfers in and out and had been for eighteen months, or so it was said.
No, I believe UE, when he said he was the coach and nothing more.
Ken1945 I believed Mislintat was the one who identified the players. (not a great collection overall) but I could be wrong
Emery’s CV was good enough imo to have entitled him to have a point of view.
I stand corrected SueP – thanks for pointing it out.
For me, there’s so much confusion surrounding Gazidis and his “three musketeers” that I had to go back and look it all up again!!
Even Ian Wright got it wrong, when he praised the signing of Pepe as a sign that The Arsenal were showing they were back in the big league!
Gazidis says that UE would have an imput in every signing, while the man himself denied this – I guess it’s down to who one believes and I’m going with UE, not that it matters a bit today of course.