Arsenal Flop Mikel Arteta Released Now Thriving at His New Club

A former Arsenal player is currently ranked 10th in the list of Europe’s best performing players this season.

The Gunners enter the first Champions League encounter of the season against Villarreal on Tuesday with one of their strongest squads in years.

Indeed, the summer signings of Eberechi Eze, Noni Madueke and Viktor Gyokeres as well as a spate of midfield and defensive reinforcements have bolstered what was an already well-equipped squad.

With that in mind, Arsenal fans are unlikely to be missing, or even thinking about Nicolas Pepe, who endured a torrid time at the Emirates between 2019 and 2023.

Arsenal signed Pepe for a then club-record £72m back in 2019 after the Ivorian posted a 22 goal haul for Lille the previous Ligue 1 campaign.

However, in his 112 games at Arsenal, Pepe struggled for consistent form, and ultimately left on a free transfer.

Indeed, describing his time in north London, Pepe told L’Equipe: “At Arsenal, I had suffered a kind of trauma, as if my passion had been taken away from me, I had a distaste for football.

“By no longer playing, I wondered why I was doing this job. I doubted to the point that I thought about stopping everything.

"I wondered how they could have attacked me so much. People went so far as to call me the biggest flop in the history of the Premier League! I didn’t ask for €80m to be spent on me. At this amount, people don’t care where you come from, they want you to perform directly.”

Nicolas Pepe left Arsenal in 2023 (Credit:Getty)

Since departing Arsenal, Pepe spent a season in Turkey at Trabzonspor before joining Villarreal, where he is playing some of his best football.

The 30-year-old was named La Liga’s Player of the Month for August upon scoring two goals and registering an assist in his opening three games this season, while as per WhoScored he is the tenth best performing player in Europe’s top five leagues.

Pepe has been given a WhoScored rating of 7.98 this term. The top three rated players this term are Harry Kane (9.53), Lamine Yamal (8.74) and Michael Olise (8.70).