Arsenal: Nicolas Pepe making great players even better

A common theme around Arsenal in recent times is finding a steady supply of chances for our elite players. Well, Nicolas Pepe may finally be bringing that.

Throughout the goal drought, when Arsenal fans were just begging for consistent chances going the way of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, it didn’t matter where the chances came from. But someone had to do it, and no one was.

It’s what made great players, like Aubameyang, look average. He looked sellable. Why keep a guy that we couldn’t use properly.

And it doesn’t take a genius to supply chances to elite goal scoring options. Just feed them the ball in semi-dangerous areas and they’ll do the rest of the work. If you get a half decent creator in there, who can pick them out in truly dangerous areas and thus eliminate the hard work, you will have a consistent threat in the attack.

That’s what Nicolas Pepe has done. Rather than our great players continuing to look ordinary, they have instead flipped the script and looked even better than great.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

• 3 standout players from 1-0 victory over Everton
• 3 positives & negatives from Goodison Park victory
• Arsenal vs PSV preview: Prediction, team news & lineups
• 3 talking points from Arsenal’s victory at Goodison Park
• Mikel Arteta provides Gabriel Martinelli injury update after Everton win

Again, that’s thanks to Nicolas Pepe.

How long has this club gone without a proper threat from wide angles? It’s been a long time. Years, even. Nicolas Pepe was brought in to solve that, and he is in the process of exactly that right now. While he struggled initially, he is finding out just how precise his delivery can be, and in tandem with that, how little he has to do to make himself useful. He doesn’t have to change the match with every single touch. He just has to find a great player and give them a fighting chance.

In his past two Premier League matches, Pepe has three assists—two to Aubameyang and one to Lacazette. On the season, that takes Pepe to six assists, three to Aubameyang and two to Lacazette. Hard to ask him to do much more than that. He’s finding the goal-scoring threats and making sure they get consistent opportunities on goal. That’s what we’ve been clamoring for, isn’t it?

And again, they don’t have to be flashy nutmeg rainbow backheels. They just have to be be a good ball into a dangerous area. The strikers will do the rest.

It’s the mark of a great player when they make those around them better, and it’s safe to say that Pepe is therefore an automatic shoo-in to be labeled a great player as well.