Totally fine for a signing not to work, the test is whether the club can move him on.
We have been awful at selling players for the last couple of years. Pepe is a guy in his prime who is underperforming, there should still be some market for him out there. Maybe Milan?
In the Wenger era Pepe would have been a dream signing. At that time we controlled most games, switch tempo very quickly, could transition from
Back to front rapidly.
Him and Sanchez would be a duo that would have most defenders pinned back, with ozil being able to ping balls to through and in behind defenders.
He’s not good enough no matter the era.
Would be swiftly found out under Wenger too.
I beg to differ we’ve seen plenty of lesser players with similar skills (pace and skilful on the ball) set to him come in under Wenger.
Edit: have you forgotten govinho, Cambell, Sanchez and Walcott, ashavin
Just not by Wenger. Would of over played him and not addressed his shortcomings.
He currently doesn’t suit our system where we neither control games or counter properly.
How many of those were dream signings bar Alexis? Pepe isn’t fit to lace his boots
Wenger relied up individual brillance, what good is someone who has the play breakdown around him, struggles to consistently beat his man, can’t retain possession and has suspect football IQ? Even his moments of brilliance are inconsistent.
Pepe isn’t a dream signing for anyone unless you’re talking about a nightmare
Tried to forget about Gervino often tbh.
I think it all depends on the broader financial health of football. There is a cohort of players across the top clubs of English football that have become nearly unsellable due to their pre-Covid wages and the fact that clubs in Italy, France, and Spain are almost all broke.
Who would really want Pepe at this point?
No club in France has the money other than PSG and they won’t be interested. I can’t see any of the better Spanish clubs being keen. Maaaaaybe you could sell him to a club like Napoli or Roma but we wouldn’t get much of a fee. Germany isn’t happening.
The market isn’t that much better within England. Newcastle will spend but they already have a similar player in ASM so I can’t see Pepe as a priority. Everton could actually really use him. But they seemingly have huge problems with FFP, which is why they are starting Andros Townsend in the first place. Other than that the richer clubs won’t want him and the poorer clubs will balk at his wages.
I’d be delighted to get rid but I think there’s a pretty strong chance he just rots on our bench and runs his contract down.
Would disagree, under Wenger the opposition had more than just one dribbler to worry about, and far less likely to double team our wingers since our midfielders would be available to receive a pass and could also dribble and beat a man; not only that the front three under Wenger was always swapping during game and never fixed.
Currently the set up doesn’t even utilised his skill set at all because the whole team is rigid and easy to play against.
What is his skill set exactly?
Whatever it is we’re clearly not missing it at the moment are we, you said he’d be a dream signing which is hilarious.
There are more holes in his game than Swiss cheese.
Pfft we are missing so much right now lol out the top six teams we can barely score goals or attack properly.
His skill set was useful in the second half of the season weren’t they! Nobody was complaining when he was scoring for the team…
By second half of the season you mean when it was over for us and he was stat padding in the last two games in the league.
We are missing genuine quality, not Pepe.
All I see is excuse after excuse for him, no accountability when he’s being being overlooked in favour of players 21 and below.
Who aren’t really producing numbers to make the team compete properly, did you miss the point where we are struggling to score; hey at least the 21yr olds fit in the system.
In 15 games 14 starts 1 sub: (31min of play time) (2 Cup games included) 1062 minutes Saka has score 2 and assists 3.
In 9 games 7 starts 2 subs: (5mins and 27min) (2 cup game included) 662 minutes game time Pepe has score 1 and assists 3.
Saka has pretty much played every game including the all the games we’ve lost, while Pepe only played in two at the start of the season.
We play better as a team with those guys over him.
As bad as our play can be it would be worse with him on the pitch, the trade off for a few more goals with his trademark anonymous performances isn’t worth it.
Which is why it would be the same under a better coach
He has barely played all the while Saka has started nearly every game…
And let’s not take anonymous performance or lack or lack of defensive work.
Doesn’t matter.
It’s still more fluid with him in over Pepe, Pepe is a warm body for rotation.
He’ll be nothing more here no matter who it is coaching .
I see we have the same problems whether Pepe or Saka in the team.
Tbh, It seems as if Pepe sounds rather limited if he only can play in specific systems and setups.
His overall play is just so inconsistent, is he really going to dribble and pass more reliably on the counter-attack or on the front foot? Let’s keep in mind the Carabao Cup fixture against Leeds he wasn’t exactly marked out the game…