Arsenal: Nobody is worried about Nicolas Pepe “struggling to score”

Nicolas Pep is withdrawing from international duty to work on his fitness at Arsenal, but this has nothing to do with any perceived “struggles to score.”

Arsenal broke their club record when they signed Nicolas Pepe for £72m, paid in five installments over the next half decade, and naturally, people were pretty damn excited about it. And, four matches into his North London career, it’s safe to say that people are still just as excited before as they are now.

But of course, media headlines are taking unnecessary jabs at Pepe that have no grounding whatsoever.

After withdrawing from international duty to work on his fitness at the Emirates, the headlines went rampant. Some feared it was an injury, which it has since proven not to be, some said he just wanted to focus on settling into life in North London.

One, however, claims that it’s because he has been struggling to score. Which is complete and utter (not to mention unfounded) poppycock.

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Pepe is not struggling to score. He’s started all of two matches and amassed a whopping 244 minutes. Not everyone is Alexandre Lacazette, scoring two minutes into his North London career. Pepe is going to need time. The opportunities are there, he is going to take them.

Of course, his failed attempt at Liverpool is going to stand out in people’s minds, but overall, he was man of the match for the day despite that effort. And he’s had some other tremendous efforts that were simply saved.

Pepe is going to score his goals, that is so, so painfully obvious that I can’t believe I’m even here having to remind people that he will, in fact, score goals.

But of course, the modern media will take any chance they can to take a sly dig at the Gunners, because that’s just the prerogative lately. So a guy withdrawing from international competition to work on club fitness must mean that it’s because he sucks, right?

Nicolas Pepe is a tremendous addition, he’s innovating the attacking game with dribbling we haven’t seen in ages and he’s proving already, in those whopping 244 minutes, why he was brought to this club and why so much money was spent on him.

No one should be worried about his zero goals. He’ll have multiple goals by the end of September and another stupid headline will have died and been forgotten. You can count on that.