It’s fair to say that Nicolas Pepe hasn’t been the star signing that many Arsenal fans had hoped he would be.
The £72 million man scored just five Premier League goals in his debut season at the club, and these days he’s not even a consistent starter, playing just 229 minutes of Premier League football this season, and scoring just once.
Time and time again, his poor start to life in England was put down to him adjusting to life in the faster-paced Premier League, but his international record shows that may not be the case.
Pepe hasn’t scored for Ivory Coast in 13 months now, and that’s a stunning statistic for a man who netted 22 league goals the season before joining Arsenal.
It’s not as though he’s been playing against top-level teams on the international scene either, since scoring his last goal he’s played against, Niger, Ethiopia, Japan and Madagascar twice, and with all due respect to those sides, a £72 million attacker should be able to carve them apart rather easily.
The winger seems to have deeper problems than simply failing to adjust to English football, whether that’s a crisis in confidence due to his poor record at Arsenal, or just a lack of quality is up for debate.
He’s been under immense pressure due to his price tag, so perhaps that’s playing on his mind, but the fact that he can’t score against these international minnows should have alarm bells ringing at the Emirates.
One thing is for sure, Pepe’s international form is incredibly worrying if you’re a Gunner, the winger doesn’t look like turning into a 20-goal-a-season attacker anytime soon, and when you consider just how much was spent on him, that’s concerning.
We all hope to see Pepe prove everyone wrong, but that’s looking increasingly unlikely as the months go by.
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