Wow, wow, wow… Raul S has pulled off the shock signing of the summer, with Dave Ornstein announcing the Spaniard has reeled in one of the best talents in Ligue 1 with Nicolas Pépé.
I am SHOOK.
Pepe to Arsenal. Hahahahah
— Le Grove (@LeGrove) July 13, 2019
The above tweet is obviously a massive L on my part, but there are layers to my unprophetic words. Firstly, the fact we’ve managed to scrabble together €80m for a player is quite incredible. If there were a saying from this summer it’d be…
‘It’s all about the instalment plan, fam’
Secondly, I am HUGELY surprised that we were the only major club outside Napoli in for his talents. I know I have repeatedly defended what Arsenal is to players and managers around the world, but I didn’t think we were in that league of intrigue for names that had clubs like Paris and Liverpool sniffing. Just goes to show you, London is a huge pull, the full stadium is unique, the training ground is special, the chance to play must also be important, and the new guys must be able to sell a dream.
What a moment, I can’t remember Arsenal dropping a signing this major since we brought in Thierry Henry. He’s the right-winger of our dreams. The most exciting Ivorian since Yaya Toure stepped foot in Boreham Wood (Jokes Kolo, jokes). He scored 23 goals last season and gave 12 assists. He’s been making a contribution to Lille every 101 minutes, which is far more impressive than what Zaha has been doing at Palace over the past season. The best he’s mustered is a contribution every 152 in his best ever year last season.
The player himself is a joy to watch, for some reason I spent a lot of time watching Ligue 1 last year and he’s been one of the stand out guys. He’s powerfully built, standing at 6ft. I think he’s slightly lighter in frame than Zaha, but he’s electric on the ball. He has deft feet, he moves at pace, he’ll come deep, he’ll stretch teams and in front of goal last season he blew up.
We’ve struggled for years to add players with athleticism to our frontline, it’s great to see we’re finally moving in on players that are a huge issue for teams on the counter. When you have a shite defence like we do, the last thing we need is to be pressed into our own half because the only person chasing a long ball is Auba (who can be crowded out physically in big games).
Outside that, this has been a fucking great signing for the fans. This is a premium signing. I really think Zaha would have been good for us, but that could have gone the way of Welbeck, or it could have just been a move that was ok.
Pepe has a higher ceiling than Zaha, I think he’s better technically, and he’s 2 years younger. Our guy has resale value as well, which is super important when you look how we’re going to have to work the ins and outs moving forward.
It’ll also be good for the squad morale. No one wants to go back to preseason and have no new faces to look at. This will add the squad vibes and it’ll be just as fun for the players as it has been for the fans.
I know that a few of journos are saying the move favoured us because we were willing to give his agency team the commissions they wanted. It seems like the cost of football these days, but it’s dodgy all the same. We’ve lost out on lots of big names in the past because we’ve ignored the dark arts of the game, and now it looks like that’s where we’re playing them… but like most things in sport, you cease to care if you have a shiny new player rolling out in a redshirt.
I did think it was quite amusing that Raul and the exec leadership team spent an afternoon getting pounded at the fan Q&A for basically no reason… they could have just said we’d be signing Pepe this week and everyone would have shut the fuck up. It’s a bit like chewing out your partner for not doing anything for your birthday, then packing up your bags and leaving them, only find out their last-ditch attempt to meet you was a surprise birthday party with the Rolling Stones.
What I find particularly handsome about this summer is that the roof of the house has blown off and we’re out the front painting with a really nice Farrow and Ball shade of gray. Where are the defenders?!
Are we Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle? It’s looking that way… but hey, at least the players are exciting.
See you in the comments!
Back again
For
The
Tr4phy
Trofee
Woo-hoo!
Thumbs all the way up
Bit of real excitement and intent. Fingers crossed this goes through. Along with tierney and a cb this would be an amazing summer window!
Freddie loves to lick bum hole
SO EXCITED!!! ONLY THING I’M UNHAPPY IS THAT HE IS WING FORWARD AND NOT A WINGER. SO WE CANT DRAW DEFENCES OUT WIDE
Jay is in for the trofee
Fuck the trophy useless cunts
Until hes in the shirt i wont believe it
Im happy we are giving players good but not obsene money. We had take that stand with Ramsey.
Leno – 100k
Mustafi Kos Sokratis Bellerin: 90k – 110k
Holding, Jenskinson, Elneny – 50k
AMN, Matteo – 40k
ESR, Nelson, Willock: 25k – 40k
Torrera & Monreal – 70k
Xhaka – 150k
Auba & Laca – 180k
Mhki – 200k
Ozil – 350k
Martinelli: 35k – 50k ???
Pepe: 80k -100k
Tierney – 70k
Saliba: 40k -70k ???
Once we get rid of Ozil & Mhki our wage bill should be ok moving forward.
Remember when I told you our net budget was more like £70m?
Pedro I made the case many times that Arsenal’s budget was not £40 million net. That figure made absolutely no sense when you add up the commercial sponsorshipof the club with the three main sponsors Adidas £60 M, Emirates £40 M and Rwanda Tourism £10 M totalling £110 M is receiving. Commercial Sponsors expect the money which is being paid to the club to be spent on IMPROVING the Team and not just covering expenses. That is what most other clubs have been doing for years. For all the negativity Arsenal’s Tv and ticket revenues should be covering our running… Read more »
pepe to arsenal 72m
auba to manure 72m reported?
hope not!
The combined wage bill of Pepe,Cabbalas, Tierney and the youngsters promoted
from Academy is probably less than what we paid Cech and Ramsey.
So we will probably be still cutting our wage bill with departure of Welbeck,
Koscielny and any other players who might leave this summer.
No Auba is staying , Emery’s made that clear . Pepe to Arsenal is in instalments and the only reason we were able to pull this off. Anyway Zaha must be pissed really bad at Raul and Palace . But at least shows we are getting badder in the market .
Adding Tierney id say the window would be an 8/10 fir us and if we can add a CB ill give 10/10 to raul.
Pedro what do u gotta say about the contacts man now huh. Pulled the masterclass of the window.
Yeah agree Pedro. Great player. Way above our current level but you have to wonder in what foundations this is all built in when one long ball and we concede a goal.
I’m pleasantly surprised by this signing. Looking forward to seeing Pepe in action.
I just hope we don’t fund it by selling off other good players we have.
pepe is 3 years younger than zaha and a class above… 22 goals 11 assists …probably deal of the TW.
if auba stays very potent attack force …and emery would get his wish and win 5 – 4 in a lot of games!
jenks , mustfi, elneny, kos , et al staying spoil the party quite a bit…
Gambon
I do remember that squire. I certainly do. I remember thinking this summer that you were full of shit too and that you’d called it wrong
You called it.
How pissed must Napoli be?
Got an extra £2 Million out of them for Ospina and now we’ve signed Pepe.
Henry
Understatement mate!!!
I Haven’t been this pleased over a summer since magaluf
Pépé has not signed yet guys!
He gets back from holiday on Monday according to sky and he will choose between us and Napoli
Just hope no one else comes in for him as arsenal are a much better prospect than Napoli !!
Are we playing today .?
Am actually fucking happy with the Pepe signing. He has been my number 1 choice for winger. And I also said we would make top 4 this season if we got all our 3-4 targets in. Ceballos and Pepe changes A WHOLE lot of things for the Arsenal in terms of how we played last season and how we wanted to play. Top4 top4. At this stage, we don’t really need to remedy our defence radically. It’s our goals that will get us top 4 not our defence. When we are ready for the title tilt, the defence would have… Read more »
These things can change but it must be real far along for it to have been announced as all but complete..
“fsaf July 26, 2019 12:42:42
Also, could we please forget about Nicolas Pepe. We are competing for Zaha with Everton FC and we aren’t sure we can outbid them. Well Pepe is wanted by Inter, Napoli, Liverpool, Manure and us. And he is evaluated at over £70m.”
Oh, well. I got this one wrong alright haha!!!
Ornstein: “Aubameyang and Lacazette will not be leaving Arsenal to help finance this deal”
Now Tierney and a CB. And sell some of the dross por favor.
CA
and Zaha!! He must be fuming with palace. They fucked his chances of being a gooner
Now he’s looking at Everton. Bummer for him
Cesc, they also paid Torrs release clause but we offered more money and got him. Haha. They must hate us too much now.
Wardo, I hope we haven’t jinxed it will all the celebrations
Mystic
And we blasted them in the Europa. Then thinking they were too dogs being Italy’s no 2 side at the time
Yes to deals like Pepe. Especially with the goals he’ll bring. We couldn’t score without Aubameyang and Lacazette last season.
useroz
Outside of Jenkinson any of those players would 95% go abroad and the window to sell players to the continent doesn’t close until the 2nd September.
Patience.
Budget being 45m pounds was probably a correct call. Raul made the genius move though, that if we have a real shot of getting a really important player, then we can go for it.
Top business on the ins so far. Absolutely top.
Tell me how will Tierney not go on full riot if Celtic refuse to let him go. He’d drive himself to London if that would help the deal get done.
An effervescent post by the excitable PedRo and I off course thank him for it. But let’s Face Facts. Hard cold ones. Pepe is a Poor man’s Wilf… Zaha was the Winger we should have signed..and everyone deep down knows that too. If Everton get him- they will finish above us. If Chelsea get him- they will win trophies in the years ahead. Off course the Reason we dont have Wilf is because Our Clown did not beat Brighton at Home and Our Spiv as a consequence has now overpaid on this Pepe chap. £72 mill for a One Season… Read more »
RSPC
Tomorrow mate in the Emirates cup.
Hopefully we ACTUALLY sign him. Plenty of time for Arsenal to fuck up.
Un
I bet he’s not happy.
Palace were just greedy though, £80 Million and the majority of it paid this summer.
Lille accepted £72 Million and £20-25 Million (I think) this summer.
I bet Palace end up accepting a deal that is worse than the one we were offering.
Mystic
I didn’t know that.
I wonder if ‘Arsenal’ is a banned word in those parts now.
Just please land a few defensive signings??
We re a Lamborghini up front but a Nissan Micra at the back.
Attwood is so desperate for us to fuck up it’s brilliant. With every bit of good news it eats away at his soul a little more.
I’m loving it.
Agree with wardo, why Pedro is acting like if the deal was done ??
Shawcross being stretched off, apparently seems he’s broken his leg
Week couldn’t be going any better, think i might just top it off and propose to this woman tonight
CG, my man, those are NOT facts.
Bati
I bet Ramsey is laughing his arse off.
Well what happens if Palace drop the pretense now and give AFC a go ahead to sign Zaha for a more reasonable price say £55-60 M.
Pedro you’re being trolled by another blog!
Mate you used to be hardcore before the Oak Milk and gluten free stuff. Back in the day you would never have stood for it.
Not sure it would make much difference, they’d probably still want a chunk of that upfront TR7 and I think that they don’t want to lose Zaha which is why they’ve laid out such difficult terms.
CG
For fuck sakes This is not bad news for arsenal. I enjoy your posts but you’re on a loser here mate.
Hamilton on pole for tomorrow’s German GP
Both Red cars needing to use their RAC breakdown cover
Ouch, the Orc’s injury reminds me of another one
#karma
Pedro, is Wenger still on Arsenal’s pay row? Read he did a little convincing with Saliba. How true is this? Might as well be the arsenal French scout these days..
CG would moan if three birds where fighting over giving him a BJ misserable sod smile ffs
Guns of Brixton Micras are reliable we are more like a triumph Stag at the back
Ughelli
Where you been???
Mr serge
It does get tiresome I can assure you
If Pepe drops that’s massive .genuinely exciting talent . would make our front line a lot more dynamic.
Iwobi can do one, can we get 10 mil there
If Zaha goes to Everton now it might do us a favour. Palace will need a replacement, maybe they approach us for Iwobi – £80 million up front you cunts!
“Remember when I told you our net budget was more like £70m?”
Gambon Always has the last word.
Un na
You been hanging around with those lady boys again!
Un nai I know I read every day misery guts most of the guys on here. Let’s celebrate s good window that can be a great one of we get a LB and a CB too
Peanuts
Na he actually called that a few months back. I remember thinking it was bollocks at the time.
Marc
Not since Koh Samui mate
Another day in the life…
Pany thoughts on ryan shawcrosses broken ankle?
Auba to be sold to fund Pepe for sure. These two are far too similar to be in same team.
Treece Jules not in first team yet? That guy is goin to be better than Eddie by next March if sent on loan to Bundesliga.
CG
You really are a dismal person, negative outlooks all the time,
Will is 28. Prem proven correct . Big player at small club.
Gets absorbed when at a big club, prove,
Rejoice this Pepe
As long as he ain’t like kenny Everett Pepe or we could be in trouble…
Peanut Brain still bitter from the yids beating against Liverpool
Mustafi
I don’t have pany, do you
‘Na he actually called that a few months back.’
That’s what i meant. Gambon is seldom off the mark.
Bearing in mind we kept getting walloped at the back end of the season by 3 goals – one would have thought signing Pepe for £72 000 000 smacks of indulgence.
Zaha would have been an absolute sensation at Arsenal…. he would guarantee us Top 4, maybe even higher.
Pepe wont….he will get us Top 5/6
Pepe will have his moments but he is a poor man’s Wilf….
Be fascinating if Everton do sign Wilf….
Because if they do….
I am buying Everton to finish above Arsenal
Leno
Chambers papa holding
Bel torr Caleb Kolasinac
Pepe laca pea
Mr serge
Lets not get Heath leadger joker style crrrrazy
We get tierney and I’m happy now
CG
Remind me what type of bomb was dropped on Hiroshima?
Dismal…
Is CG
morisery
In disguise..
Wilf is good bu5 would have been a big gamble
Plus we have a few good left wing wingers coming through..
Just rejoice for ffs CG
It’s boring at this point, going against the grain, making outlandish statements. CG is what Thomas is here, just ignore them. They’re just here to shake up the comments section with trolling and baiting.
Two adults behaving like kids.
That’s a nice surprise, and I think we will see some departures. Either ozil or mhiki will be gone. As well as mustafi.
Seems we finally are heading in the right direction. About time, the club stopped tripping over their own balls.
RSPCA
“””””Will is 28. Prem proven correct . Big player at small club.”””””
Wilf can play until his 33 easily.
He has Those Ronaldo Genetics.
Everybody Deep Down Knows – Not signing Wilf will bite us on The Backside.
Wilf is a Gooner
Pepe is a Mercenary
T.H
Best in the
Yeah
Fuck him….cunt.
Good enough ?
Shawcross career ender with his own tackle, im glad , even better no one touched him
Pepe has made 187 less appearances than Zaha and has 7 less goals than him but he’s a poor mans Zaha. Okay.
Idiot.
A prediction for the season – we will draw Stoke in one of the Cup’s at home. When Arsenal fans sing “he walks with a limp, he walks with a limp Ryan Shawcross he walks with a limp” we will be derided by the media and Stoke will go mental.
Funny how the fact that they’ve been doing it for years will be irrelevant.
I’ve already seen a Stoke fan crying about Arsenal fans rejoicing for Shawcross injury on twitter. Payback’s a bitch.
Un na. We have actually done a number or 2 on Napoli this past year. It also shows the lack of appeal the serie A has these days. Used to be the go to league for superstars and all that. Anyways, let’s sign Pepe first. Cos I saw PSG, Inter and ATM also have bids accepted. I think I also saw Liverpool is in the frame too. We have thrown everything in this now that is public knowledge and we absolutely have to get it done. If we fail and go back to palace they will quote 120m. That’s how… Read more »
We are splitting the fee ove4 5 years …ffs
25 up front 12.5 next 4 years…
Good deal.
Mystic
If the deal falls through now we are all going to look seriously fucking stupid.
Mystic
Simple
Where would an African player
London multi cultural city
Or Napoli
More right than tommy Robinson…
Hhhmmmm
So is Pepe going to play CB or what?
Also still no one on the dross list sold yet and there are about 15 of them left.
Zaha would have improved us. Far from a gamble. Pepe just makes more sense aside from the fact he needs little adaptation period. We can wait.
His first season he scored 13 league goals while battling relegation. Pepe is not a one season wonder at all. If he gets 13 league goals for us consistently I will be very happy. Add assists of 8 to 10. That’s about 23 goal contributions from the wing.
Messi and Ronaldo done changed the whole goals number game. Can’t wait for them to retire.
Argos Arsenal
Mystic
Agree those are Pires like numbers
Remember this African player is a worker, not a tourist. And he’s already living in France which is not so bad a place. So many factors could take him anywhere. But if it’s just Napoli, I am confident
Marc, glad you see sense in that. When is our game tomorrow? Time? If you know…
3pm I think might be 3.15 it’s on Premier HD in the UK.
Palace scored 3 goals last season at
Arsenal
City
Liverpool
Leicester
Burnley
Zaha was The Reason Why.
Zaha is proven in The Prem
Zaha Is the most influential player in The Prem.
Not signing him will prove to be a Mistake.
Pepe has proved he can score goals for
little lille in a Lopsided French League
So bloody What….?
Since when do sensible clubs pay £72 million for a One Season Wonder?
He is a £30 000 000 player.
“Zaha Is the most influential player in The Prem.”
What a complete wanker.
Not sure why people are bagging on Pepe over Zaha.
The guy has shown he has completely bossed the Lille level. Any time somebody comprehensively shows that are at a level above their club I think it’s a safe signing.
72 mil well spent , fuck me we bid 90 for lemar! Dodged a complete bullet
Marc, lol i’ve come across someone i couldn’t stand until Amir Khan and then this prick on here.
*never
CG new levels of trolling. Absolute joker.