The transfer market lived in the past five years one of its times of greatest abundance. Clubs could allocate huge amounts of money to acquire new players and thus, the record for the most expensive signing in the history of a club could be broken almost every summer. But not all of them turned out well.
The hardest case is, perhaps, that of Arsenal. The London club has acquired true Gunners legends on the market (Henry, Bergkamp…), but the record for the most expensive player is still held today by Nicolas Pépé. The Ivorian had excellent seasons at Lille and a reforming Arsenal found a future star in him. Lille, knowing that they had a highly sought-after player, managed to close the deal with the Londoners for 85 million euros.
After his arrival in 2019, Pépé did not finish finding his place at Arsenal. Neither with Emery nor with Arteta. His best football could not adapt to the style of those in London and, After 108 games with just 27 goals, the winger is ‘nominated’ to end his spell at the Emirates Stadium.
According to the Daily Mirror, Nicolas Pépé will be declared transferable by Arsenal and they will try to get the most out of it by putting a price on the player of 30 million euros, adjusted to its market value which, according to Olocip’s calculations, is €29,174,500.
There were efforts by Mikel Arteta to try to get the best out of the player this past season as well, but Pépé never showed the level exhibited at Lille. Thus, those 30 million euros will be invested in continuing to strengthen the squad in order to settle, once again, at the top of the Premier League. The Gunners’ big goal is still a striker after losing the race for Vlahovic with Juventus.
