Mikel Arteta says Nicolas Pepe left the club to gain more regular minutes and suggests a plan is in place to replace the winger.
Pepe joined the north club from Lille in 2019 for a club-record £72million, but he failed to live up to expectations at the Emirates Stadium.
The 27-year-old showed plenty of promising flashes, however, it was a lack of consistency that prevented him from becoming a first-team regular.
Pepe’s playing time diminished over the last few seasons and he has been deemed surplus to requirements having been sent on loan to Nice for the 2022/23 campaign.
Explaining his decision to let the player leave, Arteta told reporters on Friday: ‘It’s been three years since he joined the club and he’s had some very good moments, some others where he hasn’t really contributed that much to the team in terms of minutes.
‘We decided for every party it was the best decision to allow him to go.
‘He needs to play football, he was really adamant to do that.’
‘I think he has tried to deal with that [his price tag] in the best possible way,’ Arteta added.
‘He’s not responsible for the price. He’s tried everything. His attuite is phenomenal, if you meet him you love him. But we have to make decisions. We have made other decisions and that has had an impact on his chances to prove his quality.’
When asked whether he could come back and play at Arsenal, Arteta replied: ‘He needs his minutes, he’s been talking to me a lot about that. I could not guarantee that right now.
‘If you stay in that period for too long then frustration comes in and the level of performance won’t be what we want. In the end we came to this decision.’
And on the club bringing in a replacement for the winger, amid links to Wolves’ Neto, Arteta said: ‘If we can implement the plan that we have, we will try to do that.
‘In the plan, that [Pepe’s loan move] was something that could happen – now it’s a reality and we’ve been preparing the last two months in order to achieve what we want. Whether that’s possible or not, we will see.’
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