I think our situation in midfield and defense is pretty dire tho. Think about a guy like Mane when he was at Stoke. He is a great player but he couldn’t single handedly take them to CL football.
Bellerin is past it, we saw how much better Pepe was when he played with a guy in AMN who can overlap effectively and be a threat down the wing. And we don’t need to rehash exactly how dire the midfield has been in supplying our attack. Its one of the worst midfields I’ve ever seen at Arsenal, creatively anyways.
I don’t think anyone could drag Stoke to the CL, lol.
I agree with your point (in relation to Southampton) and that with Pepe, he can’t drag this team anywhere on his own - even when we have had one man teams in the past, the quality of the midfield was surely better.
I think only Auba is an exception, despite the skill vacuum in midfield, he still kills it with his numbers
The first two of those “Pepe moments” was a shot that missed and a penalty.
There were a couple of good goals but if that’s the best of his Arsenal career then 70m seems a bit steep.
He’s not a young prospect, he should be at his peak, if he doesn’t start putting in some decent performances next season then he will be another in a long list of expensive failures at the club.