‘They will be laughing all the way to the bank’: Arsenal signing Nicolas Pepe criticised

Updated 04/10/2019 at 08:51 GMT

Arsenal summer signing Nicolas Pepe has been criticised by Martin Keown who thinks they overpaid for him.

Nicolas Pepe was signed for £72m from Lille this summer

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The Gunners spent £72million to bring the Ivorian winger to the Emirates over the summer, but he has failed to deliver on his potential.

With just one goal and two assists to his name in nine outings, the 24-year-old was dismal against Manchester United on Monday and he played just 24 minutes of the 4-0 Europa League win over Standard Liege last night.

Pepe is struggling to make his mark and Keown hasn’t been impressed with the early signs.

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He said: “If you think back to Arsene Wenger, he would have never of blocked the path of a young player but they are in danger of doing that with Bukayo Saka.

Nicolas Pepe has failed to impress at Arsenal

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“Pepe, is he going to get into the team?

“It’s a massive amount of money they have paid for him and Lille will be laughing all the way to the bank with that one.

“It's still early days and maybe the player will turn it around but I haven't really seen what I expected to see from him.”

Michael Owen was similarly critical, as he said: “We're talking a lot of positives about Arsenal at the moment but I think there is one little negative eating away and that is Pepe,"Owen added.

"I was excited by him, I saw him in the French league and he looked a very good player, he started the first game and looked like he had a bag of tricks but he's just gone off the boil.

"That's a huge investment for anybody but it is a huge investment for Arsenal.

"I'd like to see him come on and play really well today, against an average team, show his stuff and get a bit of confidence. That's a concern.”

Arsenal – who are fourth in the Premier League table – host Bournemouth on Sunday.

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