Nicolas Pepe’s potential move from Arsenal to Saudi Arabia has collapsed with the club in question moving on to other targets.
Arsenal’s hopes of offloading Nicolas Pepe have taken a hit after a move to Saudi Arabia collapsed.
That is according to CBS Sports, who claim that a mystery Saudi Arabian club had made a move to sign Pepe.
They offered a salary of around €5million, which works out to around £83,000-a-week.
Pepe was also offered significant bonuses in order to make the move from London to Saudi Arabia.
However, the deal has now ‘collapsed’ with talks completely off and Pepe set to stay at Arsenal – for now at least.
The mystery Saudi club have moved on to other targets now with Pepe left in limbo.
Arsenal will be desperate to get rid of Nicolas Pepe
It’s easy to forget just how much hype surrounded Pepe upon his arrival at Arsenal in 2019.
The Ivorian had just smashed 22 goals and 11 assists in 38 Ligue 1 games for Lille, becoming one of the most in-demand wingers in Europe.
Arsenal decided to go all-in, striking a club-record £72million deal.
Pepe started off well; many will remember what a threat he posed in the trip to Liverpool back in August 2019.
The pressure was enormous though and the price tag seemed to weigh on Pepe, who was heavily criticised when things didn’t go his way.
Bukayo Saka’s emergence certainly didn’t help either; whilst Pepe wasn’t delivering to his full potential, this young upstart was – and he has become Arsenal’s main man.
Pepe spent last season on loan at Nice and eight goals in 28 games wasn’t a bad return.
There is no route back to Arsenal though and this Saudi Arabia move collapsing may just ramp up the Gunners’ attempts to move Pepe on.
Receive exclusive football transfer news and updates twice a week to your mailbox
