During the last couple of weeks, there have been reports that Arsenal have agreed on a deal to sign winger Nicolas Pepe from French club Lille.
And yesterday, Lille president Gerard Lopez had confirmed that the transfer should be completed within the next 24 hours.
“He is the one who made the decision, I think it should be (made official) in the next 24 hours,” he told RMC.
“Through discussions with Nico and his agents, things focused on the certain clubs that we wanted to focus on, the two projects that interested the player.”
But speaking to the press, Arsenal boss Unai Emery was more cautious and refused to count the chickens before they hatched.
“He played here in Angers a few years ago, and then in Lille. He has progressed as a player,” Emery told reporters.
“We are speaking about a lot of players, we want to select on players who can really help us, give us big performances and improve our squad.
“We have different options. This one at the moment is not closed, but he is one we are following.
“We are working on the possibilities to sign players. We signed [Dani] Ceballos, and we have a possibility with Pepe. We are looking for the possibility to improve, but only if we can take more steps in the squad.
“Our target is to sign another player if he can really, really improve us. Our target is continuing to sign another player if we can.”
It is more or less certain that Nicolas Pepe will be joining Arsenal but from the words of Unai Emery it looks like the deal has not been wrapped up yet.
