Not really the only player though, 80% of our squad has been playing poorly, including Auba who was until this season a 20 goal a season player and Saka who only started playing well towards the very end of last year. With the exception of Tierney, Leno and Gabriel none of our players have performed well consistently. You could also argue that Artetas current setup plays to both Sakas and ESRs strengths but no one else’s, so to me this whole everyone should play good regardless of setup isn’t a very good point. Different players suite different styles of play, which is why top managers at top clubs buy players with a specific set of skills.
To me that would only be a legit argument if the rest of the squad were performing well and he was the only one who was shit, which isn’t the case at all.
The attackers were playing poorly, they haven’t been for a while though have they? Granted Auba still isn’t himself but that doesn’t excuse Pepe. Even Lacazette had a spark recently. He can’t displace any of these guys for a reason.
And no matter whether it’s been recently or not at least they’ve done it for a run of games. All I see are excuses for this dude, does Arteta coach him to be anonymous in games too?
Everything is on Arteta despite the fact others are actually playing well to a degree, when is it on Pepe? Year four? I get that this transfer simply HAS to work for some of you guys but yeah this guy isn’t it. If we do get a new coach who actually knows what he’s doing then watch the situation be very similar, the likes of Klopp and Pep would not like working with this guy at all.
Yeah, don’t really like the argument of let’s blame the manager for pepe’s shiteness.
Arteta doesn’t let players do what they want, hmm, I’m sure on artetas chalk board there’s instructions for Pepe to shoot at every opportunity, to never look up and cut it back to 2 players who have an open goal, to dribble into situations you’re not getting out of because again you haven’t looked up.
He’s performed horribly. You can’t excuse his brain dead style solely on the manager.
Yeah exactly, and neither has Pepe the last few games he has played in he has been one of our better players contributing to attacking play and scoring goals before he was dropped for no reason.
He was dropped because he started against Villa, did well at beating players but made the wrong decision time and time again so we lost. Countless times he made space at the edge of the box and wasted the chance
There’s a good player who will scare defenders for a few years but it’s completely understandable why he’s not been played by Emery and Arteta.
I’m on team @Darkseid on this one. I think Pepe has some nice individual skills but is just lacking in some really basic footballing traits that make him a poor combination player. Movement, vision, timing are all just lacking. He has poor chemistry with every fullback.
A different system might suit him better but I’m skeptical that any possession based system will suit him well. It’s also worth remembering that he was crap under Emery too.
It’s not all on Arteta as far as Pepe is concerned imo, the poor decision making in the final third is all on the player, we paid 70mil for him, granted even he, would admit it was too much for him, but you can’t tell me that some of the choices he made or the positioning in some situations, is just because his hands are tied by father Mikel telling him what to do at all times.
He’s a technically sound player, no denying that, it just goes beyond that in professional football.
I was very hyped when he first signed and thought that we’d finally signed a star wide player to replace Alexis, however, watching him over and over I just become more and more convinced that 1) he won’t become a key player for us as he was signed to be and 2) if he does then we won’t be going anywhere of note for the foreseeable.
Like you say there are some fundamentals that he has deficiencies in not to mention the lack of consistency and tendency to let games pass him by. I don’t think these things can be masked by a superior coach, in fact I don’t think they’d invest in him too heavily as he is and tbh they’d more likely show him the door. How often does a turnaround like that happen? Because soon we’ll be going in to season three without him establishing himself.
Top players can perform in spite of some dross around them but be at their best when they have some players near their level sprinkled in the sqaud, Pepe just looks like he can’t perform in either case.
Was gonna point this out, Pepe’s previous really good performances usually came with AMN playing on the right.
Anyways we need to figure out a way to get both Pepe and Saka on the pitch at the same time. I’m thinking at the expense of Willian, Pepe should be on the left.
Has Bellerin ever looked good with anyone the past year?
Not with Pepe, not with Willian, not with Saka, not with ESR and not with Martinelli. Not sure if he played with Nelson.
Pepe has the tools to be everything we need on the right but he needs better full back support and consistency of games.
He’s having fun today because of Cedric’s direct approach and the fact he actually plays like a full back (albeit a limited one) and doesn’t cut inside as frequently as Bellerin does.
Either way - love to see him succeed at Arsenal so long may it continue.