i think yes breaking the Auba record.
Pogba will break that soon anyway.
he say the agent fee and wages it's the main reason he chose us over Napoli.
Arsenal could be about to break their transfer record to sign 24-year-old Nicolas Pepe, an Ivory Coast winger who plays for Lille in France.
Supporters surprised to learn the Arsenal transfer budget stretches to £72million - far more than the buttons it was thought they had available - should be excited. Pepe is a direct goalscoring threat and should instantly make Unai Emery's first XI better.
But who is he? And is a player unfamiliar to many in England worth a fee that would make him the Premier League's third-most expensive signing?
Where did Pepe come from?
Pepe scored 22 goals and provided 11 assists in 38 Ligue 1 appearances last season, firing Lille to a surprise second place finish in only his second year at the club, attracting interest from European giants said to include Barcelona, Liverpool, Inter Milan and Napoli.
Born west of Paris to Ivorian parents, Pepe grew up in the 19th arrondissement of the French capital and, aged 14, made the wise choice to stop playing as a goalkeeper to move outfield, eventually appearing for lower league Poitiers in 2012/13 before signing for then-League 2 Angers. Pepe didn't make his Ligue 1 debut until 21 years old in the 2016/17 season, scoring three goals in 33 league appearances for the just-promoted Angers.
Marcelo Bielsa spotted the potential and signed Pepe for Lille in the 2017/18 season, and although Bielsa was sacked in December, Pepe impressed, scoring 13 goals and providing four assists in 36 league appearances.
What sort of player is Pepe?
Pepe can play across the attack as winger or inside-forward and was always either a right midfielder in a 4-4-2 or the right-sided forward in a 4-2-3-1 for Lille in the 2018/19 season. Left-footed, he naturally drifts inside the pitch to attack on his stronger side, which changed the shape of Lille's attack from a 4-4-2 to more of a 4-3-3, a little like Riyad Mahrez in Leicester's title-winning team, or one of Liverpool's wide forwards last season.
Unlike many other left-footed creative attackers, Pepe does a lot of work off the ball and offers something of a defensive presence when out of possession, making 137 recoveries and contesting 83 aerial duels last season. For comparison, Angel Di Maria made 100 recoveries and attempted to win just two headers. Both offered plenty going forward but Pepe is more involved in all phases of play.
Pepe's physicality should help him adjust to the Premier League more quickly than many foreign imports but a lot will also depend on where Emery plays him. Many of Pepe's goals from Ligue 1 were the result of his advanced starting position during blistering counter-attacks - Arsenal cannot afford another forward either unprepared to put in a defensive shift or get back to assist the rest of the team without the ball.
Lille shocked PSG in a 5-1 win in April 2019, with Pepe scoring his side's second goal. When out of possession the team would drop deep, get compact and surround any attacking PSG player on the ball, all while keeping a striker at halfway and Pepe close by in a wide position.
As soon as the ball could be won back, Lille broke forwards at speed.
Pepe could then make a curved out-to-in run from wide right between PSG defenders and sprint beyond the last man.
He's seriously quick and PSG couldn't get close enough to prevent the goal. Pepe constantly looks for these opportunities to break in beyond a high line and his ability to find them while working the right of midfield will have particularly attracted Emery who was short of wingers last season.
Arsène Wenger's teams were built around keeping possession and progressing play through many short passes but Emery appears to prefer making use of transitions and Pepe's pace and ability to cut inside from wide would suit this style of counter-attacking, allowing Arsenal to sit a little deeper out of possession and spring forwards.
Pepe's direct nature could really help Arsenal attack more like an Emery team is supposed to. There's more to his style of play than simply sprinting on the counter, as this example from Ivory Coast's draw with Mali in the Africa Cup of Nations shows. Here, Pepe picks the ball up in a deep position and instantly looks to go forwards.
After a few touches, Pepe spots a pass and launches a chip over the defence.
The ball drops perfectly for the striker (who, coincidentally, is fellow Arsenal target Wilfried Zaha), who narrowly misses at the near post.
This same kind of pass over the top for the pacy Aubameyang - or any of Arsenal's forwards - could be a lethal weapon and a way to punish teams who try to press Arsenal close to their goal, as so many sides do.
Why do Arsenal need a player like Pepe?
Arsenal's collection of ageing and unreliable defenders rightly attract opprobrium, but a look under the bonnet shows all was not hunky-dory in attack last season despite their tally of 73 goals.
Emery's team reached that total - behind only Liverpool and Manchester City - with a shot conversion rate of 21.5 percent of their attempts on target, the highest of any team since 1996 according to Opta. Although their Expected Goals total for the season ranked fourth in the division at 60.02, ten teams had more shots on goal than Arsenal. They included Wolves, Southampton, Crystal Palace and Everton.
Despite some high-profile misses from Aubameyang, Arsenal enjoyed a hot finishing year which suggests unless they increase their volume of shots (without sacrificing too much quality) they will struggle to repeat that level of goalscoring.
Other than the two star strikers, Arsenal's squad suffered from a lack of menace and threat. Mesut Özil, Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan each have their qualities, but running off the shoulder or firing shots off are not among them (Mkhitaryan is probably the most shooty of the three). They want to be involved in the creation of attacks, not the exclamation point at the end of them.
This lack of bombast was acute away from home. At the Emirates, where visiting teams tend to sit back, Arsenal could stroke the ball around and wait for two or three isolated chances to win the game and more often than not they succeeded. In the face of more aggressive tactics on the road however, Arsenal lacked the punching power to respond. Arsenal picked up just one point away from home after conceding first last season, with 1-0 losses at West Ham and Everton especially limp.
This lack of threat and inability to pile on the pressure when behind was also linked to Arsenal's lack of dribblers. Not a single Arsenal player ranked in the top 18 for dribbles in the Premier League last season, with Alex Iwobi's 98 dribbles putting him 19th in the rankings behind full-backs Ben Chilwell and Aaron Wan-Bissaka. Wilfried Zaha topped the league with 249, the most of any player in Europe's top five domestic leagues. Who was second? Nicolas Pepe.
Unless a cute flick around the corner came off or there was a turnover of possession, it was difficult for Arsenal to progress swiftly upfield and catch opposition at their most disorganised. The addition of Dani Ceballos in central midfield and pursuits of Pepe and Zaha show this defect did not go unnoticed by Arsenal's recruitment hierarchy.
All are players whose ball-carrying tempts opponents towards them which can open up space for others. Emery will hope this can lead to more consistent, less sporadic chance creation and longer spells of sustained pressure.
Pepe will need to adjust to his new surroundings and Emery's tactical setup if he is to prove a success but at £72million he might find time in short supply. Fortunately for Arsenal, his performances last season suggest that they have secured a truly special player and one who could make that price tag look more than reasonable in the near future.
How could Arsenal line-up with Pepe?
4-2-3-1
Emery constantly tinkered with Arsenal's formation last season, but his coaching history suggests a form of 4-2-3-1 is his preference. Arsenal's lack of wide players perhaps pushed Emery away from this system in his debut campaign, but Pepe's arrival would put it back in play.
Arsenal fans will daydream about Özil playing behind a roving trio of Pepe, Aubamyeyang and Lacazette which is the sort of combination that works well on Fifa but perhaps not in reality. We might see it when Arsenal are chasing a game, but a more balanced approach might be any two of Pepe, Aubameyang and Lacazette supported by two creative types.
Emery may rotate between Özil, Ceballos and even Joe Willock as his central attacking midfielder, start Pepe on the right, one of the strikers through the middle and then Iwobi, Reiss Nelson or Mkhitaryan from the left.
Iwobi prompts criticism for his lack of end product, but he has thrived before as the technically safe counter-balance to two more high-tariff forwards when alongside Theo Walcott and Alexis Sanchez in this system in 2016.
4-3-3
If Emery is to start all three of his blue-chip forwards, he may look for some added security further back in the team with a number ten-less midfield three. This might prove an effective option for away games, when for one reason or another Özil is not available. Lucas Torreira at the base behind Matteo Guendouzi and Dani Ceballos looks tasty, but Willock has strong claims after his pre-season performances and Granit Xhaka is still difficult to dislodge.
4-4-2/3-4-1-2
Another option for Emery is to play two of his forwards close together as a pair. One of the squad-building benefits of signing a player like Pepe is that he can act both as first-choice winger and second or third-choice striker. At the other end of the Seven Sisters Road, Tottenham have effectively side-stepped the thorny issue of 'who the hell could be Harry Kane's deputy?' thanks to multi-functional forwards Heung-Min Son and Lucas Moura.
For Emery, this could be a 4-4-2 with either a flat midfield or a diamond. Fans tend to think of 4-4-2 as an attacking formation, but interestingly Emery has spoken of using the system when he wants his team to defend more passively in a deeper block. Arsenal lined up in an old-school 4-4-2 away at Manchester City last season, for example. Diego Simeone's Atletico Madrid and Claudio Ranieri's Leicester exemplify this plan in action.
Speaking to Pep Confidential author Marti Perarnau in a 2018 interview, Emery said: "If the ball is in play, we press, all while remaining organised tactically. Those are my two outlooks from a defensive point of view. If the ball is in play, you press. If play stops, you reposition yourself. For me, the 4-1-4-1 is the system which facilitates that type of pressing. The 4-4-2 is designed more and more for zonal positioning. It’s less aggressive, but is more difficult to get past."
All of these formations depend on Emery trusting a back four, which may require the eventual arrival of Kieran Tierney and another centre-back. Nevertheless, even with a back three the option of pairing Pepe with Lazcazette or Aubameyang remains. Like Thierry Henry and Robin van Persie before him, centre-forward might be where the Ivorian settles when he hits his peak.
