Arsenal should sell Pepe ASAP! by ThirdManJW
One thing Arsenal have become renowned for over the last decade or so, is never… ever… EVER… learning from our mistakes! I was hoping this would have changed with the new board, but then they decided that, yet ANOTHER Chelsea player should spend his twilight years at our charity club.
Unsurprisingly, Chelsea are having the last laugh, again!
Over the years we have lost a colossal amount of money, not selling players at the right time. No better example, than what happened with Alexis and Ozil. When you don’t have an owner who’s willing to bankroll transfers, you have to maximize sales. Selling players at the right time isn’t always easy, and all clubs make mistakes, but Arsenal have been one the worst clubs in modern day history when selling. With so little money for reinvestment, it’s no wonder our current squad is worst it’s been for over 30 years.
With that in mind, we must start selling at the right time, and it has to start with Pepe. Personally, I really like him. I feel some of the best teams need a player like him, who has the ability to take players out of the game with his dribbling ability. Having a player that works off the cuff and doesn’t always obey the exact tactics the manager wants can be so beneficial at times. I also feel sorry for Pepe, because it feels like he has never been wanted at Arsenal, as he was a board signing. Emery didn’t want him, and it seems, neither does Arteta.
Pepe still has huge potential, and is at great age, and that is why we can still cash in on him. He hasn’t been that great for us, and as much as I still like him, we must sell in one of the next two transfer windows. Unless we see a huge upturn in form that is. We will have to accept a loss on our original investment, especially given the current economic climate, but the loss could easily be far greater should we decide to keep him any longer than this season.
Any signing/sale is a gamble, but Arsenal’s patience, and generosity has been taken too far with players in long dips of form. I think Di Maria at Utd was a good example. Great player, but it wasn’t really working after his first season, and Utd cashed in before they lost any more money. One could argue, Utd did lose out in the end, because Di Maria has been very good since leaving, and Utd haven’t had any wingers of his quality since. Although Di Maria is playing for PSG, who dominate the French league.
So, do we risk another season and hope Pepe comes good, or cash in before it’s too late? Given our history with sales, I would sell.
ThirdManJW
Pepe has bee long enough at Arsenal to showcase his purchase price. I think something is not working right, Arsenal should cash in on him.
“When you don’t have an owner who’s willing to bankroll transfers, you have to maximize sales. ”
Pepe cost £72m
Net spend of £40 odd million during Covid.
I know it’s tempting to look for a scapegoat but let’s use a bit of common sense.
On topic: it’s looking like Pepe’s days are numbered…
Not supposed to be a reply to you, Leonard.
Pepe might be good in France. Spain. Italy or Germany but he is not an EPL player he don.t get stuck in and play like EPL players do and I personally don’t he ever will be
I agree, he just struts around like he is Messi, Ronaldo, he has not done anything to be walking around like I am the main man, no your not £72 million more like 0.72p
All he has is a sweet left foot, holds on to the ball to long before passing it,if he does not lose it, which he does more than pass it.
4/10
Who would buy him and for what price? Don’t see anyone willing to pay over 30
You are just right. No team will buy him for above 30mil because he is not performing.
We kind of have to play him and hope he becomes the player the club thought he would be.
We paid 30m to much for him imo and that is where the issue will be if we were to sell in either of the next 2 transfer windows, plus we’re in a situation with Covid.
In a recent article about Arsenal and the Kroenke written by Orstein and Amy Lawrence in the Athletic, the decision to buy Pépé was taken by Arsenal executives at a Kroenke barbecue” after deciding not to pursue a deal for Zaha, at the barbecue executives who got wind of a 80M offer from Napoli for Pépé Arsenal decided to Immediately start negotiations with Lille for the transfer of Pépé “I don’t what was going on at the barbecue or if the executives were drunk but they made the decision to offer 80M based on a rumour unbelievable, no wonder Lille were open to a structured payment plan with around 30M as a down payment when Napoli were offering around 35M in total!
yep, we mugged ourselves right off there.
Lille even said at the time of the transfer that it was the largest offer they received by a fair margin.
They also went on to say that they tried to poke Pepe in the ”right direction” and his agent even said that it wasnt the best financial deal for the player but the one with the best prospects for his career.
Well what else can we say – it must have been some BBQ if a tight fisted bunch of executives agreed to part with 80m for a player that was worth 40 at the most
To be fair to those executives at the BBQ, most fans at the time were probably just as impressed with Pepe after watching him tear through defences on YouTube.
To French clubs , Arsenal is probably synonymous with Santa Claus. We have always been willing to pay over valuation for talents in Ligue 1. They know we are willing to pay big money and they are not shy to ask for huge sums, like the recent 55m for Aouar.
By the way, pre-Arsenal Pepe looked way better than Aouar on YouTube
Pepe was good in France and as JW mentioned of Angel di Maria, Pepe will come good again in France.Use him for the EL, let him own that competition and use that as a bait. The red card was unfortunate, but we were poor even before that incident. Pepe does have the skill and talent and would be a revelation had he to play for more direct teams like Pool or Lesceister. Our slow passing by Xhaka and pals is the main reason for the forward slump. Laca was never good, but Auba & Pepe are suffering today. Let Partey join back and if AMN partners him in midfield with his pace and energy we might see a resurgence of Auba and Pepe. Xhaka, Cabellos, Willock are definitely not any managers dream midfield team. Agree with you, I too would not like Aouar, would prefer Domnick S.
We must now take the hit and move on
There’s obviously lack of control from Arsenal owner. Kroenke seems the type of owner who leaves everything under his employees and expects everything to work well without his supervision, just because he’s been paying them handsomely
No employee will put in extra efforts if the employee isn’t supervised well and if he thinks he’s highly replaceable. This applies to all employees under Kroenke at Arsenal, including the executives, directors, managers and players
If I were Kroenke, I’d make sure nobody can stay in comfort zone without showing progress. Now Kroenke is paying for his negligence and laziness, while dragging the fans with him
Good to hear, got an idea. Now we both know that you and I have had some fall outs in the past about other Arsenal issues, but on this topic I could not agree more than I DO. The perils of both being passionate Gooners with strongly held opinions I suppose, though I am sorry to have been so rough on you at times. I have been prominent myself in consistently saying that the OWNER is always the one who is most to blame when a club is badly run, as ours has been for some considerable time.
In fact, you could well argue that goes back to the black club day that David Dein was forced out in a catastrophic act of boardroom stupidity and treachery and that we have been paying the awful price ever since .
FACT is that Dein was forced out in 2007 and Kroenke took over that very year. Since then we have suffered the calamity of Gazidis, left unchecked by this remote and uninterested owner. Which fully backs up your own shrewd post. We all know the expression “When the cats away, the mice will play” and with this remote owner, never has that been proven more true.
Gazidis has done far more damage by himself than any other ten people who have even been employed by our club in ANY capacity. We are now paying for his calamitous time here and will for some time into thr future, thanks to the rubbish MA was left to inherit. Others are also to blame. though to a lesser extent, AW, UE and even some of the old age buys brought in under MA.
I advise to keep the faith, as we now have a far healthier set up in terms of day to day decision makers NOW running the club. BUT the Kroenke handicap still remains and unless and until he is forced to sell us to a proper owner, we will labour under a handicap that none of our main rivals, apart from possibly Spurs, have. Sigh!
I remain the staunchest of devotees to what I see as the admirable Arteta. But I also recognise he was left a poison chalice, made worse by foolish and hasty impatient “fans” who are calling even now for his head. The lack of thought behind some of these fans posts is staggeringly depressing and so utterly wrong
No worries Jon
I’ve had a boss like Kroenke, who’s rewarded his employees with high salaries and thinks his employees would work professionally 100% without tight monitoring from him. I’m afraid this complacency culture has also been plaguing Arsenal
Uhhh, excuse me, Kroenke is not a football fan, he doesn’t give a 4ck about employees efforts, what the fans think, or who the club buys or sells as long as his profit margin is consistently maintained
A single mistake like this can take us back almost 2 transfer windows.
How are we ever going to succeed when there are such decisions made by the executives 🙁
Wow, Siamois, you couldn’t make it up 😆 No wonder we’re in such a mess….
Let’s hope now that there’s been a reshuffle upstairs, this will be a thing of the past!! (I won’t hold my breath just yet though, just in case 😂) Would’ve loved Zaha!!
I would happily sell him for half his amount and reinvest. Don’t think we’ll ever see a better version of him and even if we will, it won’t be worth 72mils.
Sell him, since he’s shown his stupid decisions too many times. On a side note, Arsenal have bad tendency in recruiting new players
As a comparison, Klopp recruited players who were highly underrated by many people. Such as Wijnaldum from Newcastle, Robertson from Hull and Jota from Wolves
Klopp seems to prefer players who are tenacious, excellent in duels/ one-on-one situations and have EPL experience. Whereas Arsenal prefer to recruit hyped players from other leagues and the ones who are highly marketable
“Sell him, since he’s shown his stupid decisions too many times. On a side note, Arsenal have bad tendency in recruiting new players”
WTF??? I guess some people enjoy beating a man whilst he’s down. What stupid decisions apart from that headbutt are you referring to? care to elaborate?
I do not think that the owner is not willing to put up cash or authorise the purchase of players. As an owner, who we all accept has little knowledge of English football, he has put in place a management team who are responsible for financial stability of the club including the buying and selling of players. We have spent around 250 million on players, some of which, with hindsight was spent badly. There is not the slightest chance that we could sell Pepe or would even want to at this time. The current theme that we are chasing this player and that player, at the cost of 20-40 million is nonsense. The management is concentrating on minimising the impact of Covid on the revenue. Common sense should tell us that they are still paying all players and staff with very little coming in. So to sell Pepe ,which would be at a considerable loss, is not going to happen.
If Kroenke is too lazy to deal with the nitty-gritty of supervising his directors/ managers/ executives himself and if he doesn’t know anything about EPL, he should’ve sold Arsenal. Spending hundreds of millions without UCL and major trophies is a very bad investment
Directors/ managers/ players came and left Arsenal, but the owner is still the same. Kroenke is the only one who can destroy the complacency culture at the club, if he’s not too lazy to push his employees
No its not a bad investment. He is sitting on about 1 billion of real estate. All in he paid somewhat less than for the whole of Arsenal Holdings of which AFC is a part. I should also quote the old proverb “why keep a dog and bark yourself”.
patH, Sound financial common sense and I agree totally with all you say. On PEPE , he has been a very bad buy for all that money but though I do not see him being here in the long term, at least not with this manager who will not tolerate ill discipline and lack of fight, til Covid AND its financial effects are well in the rear mirror, I see zero chance of PEPE leaving, esp as selling him will be impossible except for peanuts, which will not happen.
patH, whar a sensible post, especially with regards to the covid situation.
I love the way fans want to spend kronkie’s money as if it’s theirs and have they forgotten we still owe over half of the reported transfer fee to Lille anyway?
So all this talk about investing the money we make, is total hogwash.
Surely MA should be earning his crust and improve the player!?
It seems that he is very quick to sideline players who need his help.
Before the “mustn’t criticise Mikel” brigade start shouting and screaming, this is an observation, backed up by the names of Guendouzi, Torreria, Martinez, Ozil and now, it seems, Pepe.
As for our management team, wasn’t his son, Josh supposed to be in the driving seat?
Weren’t we all told he would sort it out along with the new board member (can’t remember his name but a lawyer)?
I want a new owner as much as the next fan, but this is down to MA to sort out, that’s why Silent Stan is paying him mega bucks.
Tim Lewis…
Thanks Sue 🙏
No one will buy pepe for 30 m .
Let’s not kid ourselves, this is another mustafi situation.
We just have to take the L and move on , hopefully he might come good ltr on .
OT. Atm pepe is actually being scapegoated , the problem we have at Arsenal is that we have no pattern of play that allows our players flourish.
Even if we have prime messi, he’ll struggle at Arsenal.
Arteta needs to figure out a style of play asap .
Seriously ??? Seems to me Pepe has the freedom to do whatever he wants on the pitch, he just lacks the quality to consistently impact the game.
IF Arteta can’t maximise his potential, then he should be cashed in. Pepe will be a monster under Wenger and I see a lot of potential in Pepe. Pepe should not be made a scapegoat for current Arsenal’s problems. It’s just simple
right on ! thank you!
I can remember when Pepe was bought, Arsenal fans seemed to think it was a brilliant signing. I was baffled, to me Arsenal had plenty of firepower already, the defence was the weak area. For what Pepe cost you could have got a couple of quality defenders that would have been far more useful. There’s no point comparing anyone’s transfer activity to Liverpool. They have developed a scientific moneyball approach that uses computerised analysis in a way no other club seems able to replicate. For them its a science, not an art.
We are paying for Pepe for the next 5 years whatever, we won’t get enough for him on his present form to even pay half. I still think he has obvious talent and i still think with the right training, he can get way better than we have seen. He wont be the first player to not utilise his talents properly but when the penny drops kicks on. There is enough there for Arteta to deal with, i can see his talent but i can also see he is way off the pace at the moment. He was flying in the french league and scoring and creating for fun, we dont have much choice.
I must admit, we over-spent on Pepe, but then proceeded to do the same for William and both players are now competing for the same position.
So in order to prove it was worth acquiring Willian, Pepe was demoted to the bench. This must, no doubt, be a source of contention within the team, but can we honestly blame Pepe for over-reacting and complaining to the press about playing time?
Going forward, we should certainly consider selling Pepe but need to realize the market is currently depressed and the club cannot sustain another loss-making deal. Dembele at Barcelona, has been available for sometime now but his value is considered to be too high. Under the circumstances, it would perhaps be better to accept and manage the risks associated with keeping Pepe.
I would also argue that the achilles heel for this club is still scouting and recruitment. We first need to develop the habit of acquiring the right talent, at the right age, at the right time, at the right positions, before discussing when and how to sell…..putting the horse before the cart.
I think that the management, have realised, that the scouting and recruitment was a weakness. They have cleared out the high cost low return scouting group for a start. They have appointed EDU to work closely with Arteta and strengthened a lot of their Data Analysis team to bring things more in line with systems used by the likes Liverpool and MC. Hopefully the will improve things in the near future.
Pepe is one of the dumbest players of all time. He reminds me of Balotelli. Lot’s of skill but no idea how to use it. I know he is young but I am not sure his intelligence will improve.
Let us cash in. The guy looks not interested in improving. He is lazy, does not help in closing down the opposition. Sell.
People shouldn’t be too harsh on Pepe. He came off the back off 2 good seasons with Lille and most people were bigging him up so much due to his stats, granted most of his goals were pens but still. Well when I heard we were getting him I was over the moon. He played under Emery where he was in and out of the team and also had to adapt to his negative tactics and not knowing where to play people in their proper positions. This effected him negatively and he was still trying to adjust to the prem.
Now under Arteta he’s been in and out of the side and he as well cant help but play the most negative football. Now yes Pepe doesnt help himself sometimes when he doesnt play well. However, if he’s in and out of the side it affects his form and his confidence. Willian starts in front of him and who knows what he’s done no matter how poor people says Pepe has been to start in front of him.
Moreover we need to consider the fact that almost every one of our forwards and mids are struggling, Auba, Willian, Laca, Ceba. We cant score mainly down to the way we are set up. I still have a bit of faith in Pepe and think that if he was played where he wanted and the tactics put more emphasis on attack as well as having people like ceb or partey threading balls for him to do his stuff properly he could come out wonderful. Cus let me tell you if we are to sign Szoboszlai dont expect him to do much if we play with these tactics and negative football. He’ll just be another player that we destroyed and fans will now want to dispose of him in a couple of months. :(((((
Cash in, avoid these huge investments in the future. Get better scouting instead. Because this purchase was clearly the result of awful scouting.
The most annoying part of it is that when their contract is remaining just one year or they are in their final year, they will start playing their best, hitting good form and scoring goals on a daily bases just to tempt the club to give them another contract… Rubbish players them…
your right just look at ABBA since he signed the new contract he cannot score, another Ozil
Arsenal got properly mugged off buying him, I think he believes the price tug justifies his performance, no it does not, your over priced and overrated.