Arsenal: Nicolas Pepe set to become another reminder

Arsenal’s pursuit of viable wide attackers inevitably led them to Nicolas Pepe, but again we see a familiar trope as he passes through their fingers.

Rewind to October or so. Arsenal was so heavily linked to Nicolas Pepe for a perfectly reasonable fee in the £40m range. He was primed for his breakout season and has followed up accordingly. He was coming from the same winger tutelage that brought Chelsea Eden Hazard and Roma Gervinho (let’s skip the in between on Gervinho).

Pepe was prove to be a class winger, thriving in Ligue 1 like so many before him. But with the link emerging so long ago, and the reasonable price that accompanied, there was always a sense that it would go up. And up. And up.

And up.

And up.

And it has. Because no breakout year ever ends in October. A breakout year, when done properly and when actually being a breakout year, lasts the entire year, meaning that those seven goals and four assists that look great in October become 17 goals and eight assists in March, onward to what will probably end up being 30 goal contributions by the summer, if not more.

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Lille know what they have, and the longer Pepe proves how good he actually is, the more the world will know just how real his talent is.

Now, Bayern Munich have swooped in with a supposed £68m bid, which is far and above the £43m base that he was originally being touted for.

Lille knew what they were doing not selling him last summer. They knew what this year was going to do to his transfer value. But Arsenal have to take a lesson from this – a lesson that they should know good and well by now.

If you wait to buy a player until he has a breakout year, you’ll never get that player. You just won’t. Not with Barcelona and Bayern Munich on the prowl, ready to fork out any sum of money to cordon off the best talent in the world.

I guarantee you that if the Gunners had waited another year for Matteo Guendouzi, they’d have never gotten him. His fee would have multiplied and he’d have ended up at PSG.

It’s a tough situation, especially when clubs refuse to sell, but with the bizarre financial situation at this club, if you don’t get a player early, you often just don’t get him. Unless you can offer him something he can’t find anywhere else.