Arsenal: 3 controversial truths fans must learn to accept as fact

2. Nicolas Pepe was worth the fee

Spending £72m on a player is very un-Arsenal like. And since it was a record fee, the implications were multiplied. The world was expected of Nicolas Pepe and needless to say, he didn’t deliver the world by any stretch.

That said, numbers alone vindicate the direction this guy is headed. Seven goals and eight assists in his first year at a club that saw three different managers, a broad swath of inconsistencies, and more short-term issues than I can count on all my fingers and toes combined.

And that wasn’t even really a “full” season. It was just 2000 Premier League minutes. Generally, you can expect 3000. Who knows what he might have done with 1000 more minutes.

Through it all, Pepe has been an effective attacker, our best attacker through arguably the majority of the season. And he remains one of the only guys we have that can consistently create something out of nothing.

Yes, he still has his issues with control. Yes, he still needs to improve. But seeing what he did this year alone and putting faith in his trajectory, there’s no reason we can’t unanimously believe that he was worth the money.