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Nicolas Pepe: The Nutmeg Express!

What would you do with Pepe?

  • Keep him for the foreseeable future

  • Give him one more season to prove himself

  • Sell if you can get a significant fee, keep otherwise

  • Sell at any price


Results are only viewable after voting.
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Rimaal

Mesmerised By Raccoons
Trusted ⭐
Let's be honest here, 95% of top players would be handing their transfer requests if they were treated like Pepe was here. By your logic, looks like all of them would be considered mentally fragile.
Pepe can't ask for a transfer because he wasn't allowed to build his stock here, he basically lost 2 years at Arsenal.
I've seen enough from him to know that he can play, and should play for us, but what's going on behind the scenes is beyond me, and it's not only Pepe because we've seen questionable decisions with other players as well

He can play, but not 72 Million worth of play. How much we paid for him is not his fault, it does however burden him with expectation regardless.
He's a good forward, but so unpolished, so precipitous, so hasty. He needs coaching and nurture and patience to truly develop, which he is never gonna get here.
 

Penn_

Established Member
Trusted ⭐
Let's be honest here, 95% of top players would be handing their transfer requests if they were treated like Pepe was here. By your logic, looks like all of them would be considered mentally fragile.
Pepe can't ask for a transfer because he wasn't allowed to build his stock here, he basically lost 2 years at Arsenal.
I've seen enough from him to know that he can play, and should play for us, but what's going on behind the scenes is beyond me, and it's not only Pepe because we've seen questionable decisions with other players as well

Doubt you’ll find many that would say he can’t play, most of his issues a come down to running into blind alleys or making the wrong choice, does that improve with game time?

If we had a better creator sitting in front of Partey / Xhaka we might be able to get away with playing him week in / week out regardless of performance. But I just don’t see how we can currently afford two final third only players in Pepe and Auba in the 11 consistently.
 

Moah

Well-Known Member
Doubt you’ll find many that would say he can’t play, most of his issues a come down to running into blind alleys or making the wrong choice, does that improve with game time?

If we had a better creator sitting in front of Partey / Xhaka we might be able to get away with playing him week in / week out regardless of performance. But I just don’t see how we can currently afford two final third only players in Pepe and Auba in the 11 consistently.
The quality Pepe and Auba provide regarding team play is not even comparable. Pepe is way better at link up play, chance creation, and overall possession football.

We haven't seen a single full game of him and Auba together with the new system, you can't assume it won't work without even trying it.

Him Running into blind alleys come from the way we use him . If you want to stick a left footed right winger to the wing that is what will happen. If you want him to play RW he needs to play as an inside forward. If you want him to play like a winger stick him to the left. Simple as.
 

Moah

Well-Known Member
This is moving the goalposts of this discussion from Willian vs. Pepe to Willian vs. Martinelli which is a totally different discussion.

It’s easy for supporters to say ‘Willian should never play a minute again!’ 2 months into a 3 year contract.

It’s a bit different for a management/ownership group who has 30 million+ invested in this player over the next 3 years to park that player forever. They know he’s been awful - that’s why they’re basically not playing him anymore in situations where he can have any sort of impact on a result. But they also owe it to their investment to try and get the player straightened out and get some value back on their investment.

It sucks but that’s how it works. And that’s how it would work for any team and it isn’t somehow specific to Arteta. And again, the minutes Willian is getting are sweet f all right now.

Whether Arteta should be ripped to shreds for wanting this player initially is another matter entirely.
No one tried to move goalposts you are just clutching at straws.

The club is to blame for signing a 32 year old Chelsea reject to play in the place of a record signing they purchased a year before. Pepe was actually coming to form and was instrumental in our FA Cup win but he went straight to the bench when Willian came here.

Arteta convinced the guy to come here and play despite all the red flags, how is he not the one to blame when he keeps on trying to justify his failure by punishing another player?

Imagine signing a 24 year old for 72M and then signing a 32 year old for an investment of 30M+, a year later despite having another upcoming talent in your team. Joke of a club!
 

Riou

In The Winchester, Waiting For This To Blow Over

Country: Northern Ireland

Player:Gabriel
Even if you don't really rate Pepe, subbing on the likes of Willian ahead of him (and Martinelli) is one of the most annoying things Mikel does for me, there is no benefit really.

Even yesterday when Nico and Gabby came on before him, they should have come on earlier, not with 10-15 mins to go or whatever it was...Pepe was in pretty good form recently and is a confidence player, poor from Arteta even as a fan.

Can't even remember the last time Laca played either, tbh :lol:
 

Sweet'n'Soulful

Yet another banned account of Jury
Find it weird how people put his lack of progression down to Emery/ Arteta dropping him. Do you not see how mentally fragile that is.
These people act like big supporters of the player and yet they talk like they have no faith in him and cast big doubts about how he clan cope with being part of a squad of every week. It’s all agenda driven stuff anyway with very little genuine thought behind it imo. It’s everywhere at the moment and it’s transparent as ****!
 
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Sweet'n'Soulful

Yet another banned account of Jury
Can't even remember the last time Laca played either, tbh :lol:
And yet nobody cares. Probably because using Laca as a stick to beat the manager with would be going too far even for some of the usual mob!

People seem to be putting the inclusion or exclusion of certain players above results at the moments and that’s the most telling thing. That’s when you smell a rat!
 
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Ash10

Chairman of the Bum Brigade
These people act like big supporters of the player and yet the talk like they have no faith in him and cast big doubts about how he clan cope with being part of a squad of every week. It’s all agenda driven stuff anyway with very little genuine though behind it imo. It’s everywhere at the moment and it’s transparent as ****!
I mean there's a guy here that you won't find in any other thread ffs:lol:
I'm not gonna say much about a player when he played like 10-15 minutes but the way some moan here you'd think he's playing with the under 23s
 

scytheavatar

Established Member
I've seen enough from him to know that he can play, and should play for us

Yawn........ ESR and Saka can play and should play for us too. Pepe has done nothing to make himself irreplaceable, someone who shows flashes of brilliance but you know isn't good enough to carry the team. So why are you saying that Pepe should be starting ahead of ESR for example?
 

Maybe

You're wrong, no?
Yawn........ ESR and Saka can play and should play for us too. Pepe has done nothing to make himself irreplaceable, someone who shows flashes of brilliance but you know isn't good enough to carry the team. So why are you saying that Pepe should be starting ahead of ESR for example?
Where did I say that? And what gives you the idea that ESR is effective on the wing? Pepe is clearly better on the wing than ESR and Auba, which makes him the first choice there since Saka is better on the other side. That's not saying he is a better player, but he is certainly better on the wing than they are
 

Melquiades

Active Member
No one tried to move goalposts you are just clutching at straws.

This is the Pepe thread and the discussion was on Pepe's usage vs. Willian's. Introducing Martinelli vs. Willian is the definition of moving the goalposts.

The club is to blame for signing a 32 year old Chelsea reject to play in the place of a record signing they purchased a year before. Pepe was actually coming to form and was instrumental in our FA Cup win but he went straight to the bench when Willian came here.

Arteta convinced the guy to come here and play despite all the red flags, how is he not the one to blame when he keeps on trying to justify his failure by punishing another player?

Imagine signing a 24 year old for 72M and then signing a 32 year old for an investment of 30M+, a year later despite having another upcoming talent in your team. Joke of a club!

Again : Arteta and Edu should be held 100% to account for the Willian signing, which was absolutely idiotic from the second it happened. Completely stupid. If/when they're fired, it will be a huge reason why, and justifiably so. Nobody is defending the signing.

However, once that stupid signing happens, of course Willian is going to start to start the season. And of course they're going to try and extract value from their signing. As literally any manager in any team would do with a huge signing that is struggling.

Willian's signing : idiotic.

Willian's usage : actually not that unreasonable given the circumstances.
 

Tir Na Nog

Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes

Country: Ireland
I always want to watch Pepe play until I start watching Pepe play

Yeah the idea of Pepe and what he's capable of very rarely works in reality, which is a shame because there's obvious talent there. But so many times there's just too many braindead moments with him and you just cannot explain it.
 

Melquiades

Active Member
Pepe has played in 28 of our 36 matches in all comps this year with 18 starts. Plus he wasn't eligible for 3 of those due to his red card. So 28 of 33 games he's been on the pitch. 1749 minutes.

But if you were in a coma for the last 6 months and walked in here, you'd think that Willian was starting every game and Pepe was getting the Özil treatment and never seeing the pitch. When in fact he's figured in basically every single game in every competition aside from a few times he was on the bench as an impact offensive substitute and then not needed because we were up by 3-4 goals.

By comparison, Lacazette has played in 27 of 36 matches with 17 starts. 1661 minutes. And several of those starts were in Europa as well.

Is Lacazette a 50 million signing being wasted by the manager? Is the treatment he's getting unfair? Should he hand in a transfer request because he's been so misteated?

Or is it possible that people are getting so triggered by the rare occasions that Willian has come in instead of Pepe in blowout games that they can't see the forest for the trees?
 

Moah

Well-Known Member
This is the Pepe thread and the discussion was on Pepe's usage vs. Willian's. Introducing Martinelli vs. Willian is the definition of moving the goalposts.



Again : Arteta and Edu should be held 100% to account for the Willian signing, which was absolutely idiotic from the second it happened. Completely stupid. If/when they're fired, it will be a huge reason why, and justifiably so. Nobody is defending the signing.

However, once that stupid signing happens, of course Willian is going to start to start the season. And of course they're going to try and extract value from their signing. As literally any manager in any team would do with a huge signing that is struggling.

Willian's signing : idiotic.

Willian's usage : actually not that unreasonable given the circumstances.
So you are saying making a wrong choice to correct a wrong move is right? Where is the logic in that one?

Its decisions like that that will cement our place as a mid-table club.
 

dashsnow17

Doesn’t Rate Any Of Our Attackers
Trusted ⭐
Yeah the idea of Pepe and what he's capable of very rarely works in reality, which is a shame because there's obvious talent there. But so many times there's just too many braindead moments with him and you just cannot explain it.

Yh, remember when he came on against Benfica and Tierney passed him the ball in the box, he took a needlessly showy touch and ran it out of play, I mean just, the guy has everything you want in a forward but he drives you mad. I reckon we'll persist for another 18 months before selling in summer 2022, doubt we get a good enough offer this summer. It is what it is.
 

Tir Na Nog

Changes Opinion Every 5 Minutes

Country: Ireland
Yh, remember when he came on against Benfica and Tierney passed him the ball in the box, he took a needlessly showy touch and ran it out of play, I mean just, the guy has everything you want in a forward but he drives you mad. I reckon we'll persist for another 18 months before selling in summer 2022, doubt we get a good enough offer this summer. It is what it is.


I'm still not sure with Pepe, I wonder if a different manager could get more out of him but it's just guess work. What I've seen on the most part just isn't encouraging enough.
 

dka1

100% Dark Chocolate
Trusted ⭐

Country: England
I dunno man to me it's simple.

He wasn't doing great near the beginning of the season when he wasn't getting consistent starts.

I agree that he wasn't doing enough when he was getting subbed on.

However he started getting regular starts recently and has looked great, even in the Villa game I thought he still looked dangerous.

I can completely understand resting him against Leeds but considering that ESR really really needs a break and I honestly don't think people would've been upset rotating Odergaard in for him (surely that's the point of his signing) I think he really should've started against Benfica.

Hopefully he starts against City but I won't be surprised if he doesn't
 
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