Arsenal: Nicolas Pepe’s encore is what we’re here to see

Arsenal brought in Nicolas Pepe to do exactly what he did against Liverpool (with a few caveats), so what he follows up his debut with is what we all want to see.

Nicolas Pepe‘s Arsenal debut was hugely positive. He’s going to get some shtick for not scoring when he had a premium opportunity to do so, but overall, he was the biggest threat the Gunners had all day. He was most active in front of goal, he completed the most dribbles we’ve seen since Bukayo Saka completed eight, and that wasn’t in the Premier League.

Pepe is exactly what we wanted. A direct attacker with a penchant for making space for himself, slicing and dicing defenders and putting himself and his teammates in close proximity to put one up on the score sheet.

The fact that he didn’t get his first goal for the Gunners just sets the table for him to make his first come in his first ever North London Derby.

In case you missed my five key players for the match, I have Nicolas Pepe as No. 1 for this reason alone. We all want to see what his follow-up will be, especially in front of a home crowd.

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Arsenal’s attack has always been the strongest part of the team. That’s always going to happen when you combine Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. But these two alone, while incredibly capable, have been just that—alone. They’ve been relying on the unreliable Mesut Ozil, the finicky Alex Iwobi, the who-the-hell-knows-what-he’ll-do Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

By opening up this attack with the likes of Pepe and Ceballos, they in turn open it up for themselves, and Pepe is the chief benefactor of this. Not since Joel Campbell have we had a guy so willing to take on defenders all by himself, try new things and fearlessly drive into the teeth of the defense. The difference is that Pepe is much better at doing it.

I don’t want to sit here and set the bar too high, or heap on the pressure. But that’s not even what I’m doing. I’m just calling it as I see it. Pepe set the bar himself against Liverpool, now, returning home against a lesser opponent, he is primed to dominate.

And, of course, it will be extra nice if he can put a better finishing touch on his moves than the one he tried against Liverpool.