Arsenal paid top dollar during the summer transfer window in order to bring in Nicolas Pepe from the French league. But sadly the winger has not been able to hit his best form yet.
During the current season, Nicolas Pepe has made 12 league appearances for the Gunners but has found the net only a single time which has led many people to believe that the Ivorian could prove to be a massive failure in England.
The player did not start vs Southampton last weekend as he returned late from international duty and in midweek too he remained an unused substitute for Arsenal’s Europa League game.
The Gunners went down 2-1 to Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday but despite the home side trailing by one goal, Unai Emery did not bring Nicolas Pepe into the match which has now raised a number of eyebrows.
Since then there have been rumours that the player might have had a falling out with the manager which is why he did not feature vs Frankfurt.
But now Unai Emery has come out to explain that the reason why the winger did not play in midweek was because of the injuries suffered by David Luiz and Shkodran Mustafi.
“We had some injuries,” Emery said after the match.
“We needed to change David Luiz and then we had a problem with Mustafi. Two injuries meant we had to make those changes.”
Luiz injured himself in the first half and had to be taken off while Mustafi took a hit during Eintracht’s second goal and like his defensive partner, he too had to be substituted.
The Gunners travel to Carrow Road on Sunday to take on Norwich City and hopefully, Nicolas Pepe will be one of the first names on the team-sheet that day.
