Arsenal: Props to Unai Emery for benching Nicolas Pepe

Arsenal struggled to attack against Wolverhampton… again. But Nicolas Pepe didn’t play. And Unai Emery needs some props for that, oddly enough.

Arsenal were out-shot 25-10 at home against a mid-table club. Pretty cool, right? And despite the horrible trajectory the match took, Nicolas Pepe, the man we spent £72m on to fix this attack, remained on the bench for the duration of the match.

Instead, Unai Emery called on Gabriel Martinelli and, not long after, called on Bukayo Saka. But never once did he move for Pepe to be introduced to the match. Despite the need for a goal. He turned to his young guys, neither of whom has actually scored a Premier League goal. Then again, Pepe hasn’t scored one from open play either.

Unai Emery doesn’t deserve a lot of props lately. In fact, all of the calls for him to get fired aren’t exactly out of line. He’s not helping the club progress in the right direction. But I am impressed by his willingness to give priority over the youngsters and keep Pepe, who has struggled on the bench.

Maybe it’s dumb luck, and it wasn’t a conscious decision, because I really question his decision-making process time and time again. I won’t even get into listing everything, suffice to say that I am surprised and impressed by one small thing against Wolverhampton.

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When Alexandre Lacazette was out injured, Emery didn’t have to choose. Bukayo Saka and Pepe started together and everyone was happy. But when the time came to make a decision between the two, despite Saka being in better form, he opted for Pepe.

I questioned it then, and I questioned it up until now, but now, Emery made a truly hard decision and left Pepe out.

Gabriel Martinelli has made such a strong impression in midweek matches, scoring seven goals in four matches, that it makes total sense why Emery turned to him first.

But that’s why Emery deserves another bit of props. Because he did something that didn’t seem much like him at all. He made a smart education and played the hot hand (…foot).

This really doesn’t change anything on the grand scale. It’s something Unai Emery should be doing anyway—making the hard decisions. He hasn’t been doing that all year. Which is why it was so nice to see him actually do it. It’s going to take a lot more than that to save his job though.