Arsenal winger Nicolas Pepe has dismissed the perception that he has a poor relationship with manager Mikel Arteta.
How much did Arsenal pay for Nicolas Pepe?
Back in August 2019, the player completed a move to the Gunners, arriving from Ligue 1 outfit Lille for a club-record transfer fee of £72m.
It's safe to say Pepe never managed to live up to his hefty price tag, and while still delivering a respectable 27 goals and 21 assists in 112 games, you got the sense that Arteta struggled to truly trust the winger as he much preferred to put his faith in an emerging Bukayo Saka.
Adding to this was the fact that he was allowed to leave on loan to Nice for the entirety of last season where he scored just six goals in Ligue 1 and claimed one assist too.
With all that in mind, some may assume that Arteta didn't have much confidence in the 28-year-old winger, but when speaking exclusively with Colinterview (via Get Football News France), Pepe has since revealed the truth.
What did Pepe say about Arteta?
He explained: “People say that he identified me as a player that wasn’t up to the level in his team, in his philosophy. It’s completely false."
Before continuing: "When he spoke to me, he said he counted on me, he wanted me to do this or that, and you have to focus on that. He improved me in every way. He spoke to me the whole time, I watched videos with his assistants all the time. He really believed in me. He said I had incredible potential, so we need to extract that potential."
However, it appears that the relationship became a bit strained during the second campaign.
“At the end of the first season, he spoke with me and told me to do this or that," Pepe began. "The second season comes along, I was a substitute. I was going mad. How could I be a substitute when he said he counted on me? Everything is spinning in your head. I was a substitute for [what felt like] 10 matches. It was at the time when they signed Willian. He is a number 10 or a winger. But he plays on the wing for like 11 or 12 matches in a row. My head turned, knowing that I had spoken with the coach and it wasn’t like that.”
“But that improved in the sense that he gave me a chance, I scored against Sheffield United at the Emirates. The confidence started to come back. I started to speak better, but it was a bit cold. I started to speak to agents, but we didn’t see each other like before. But it improved.
He concluded: "It’s not true that he labelled me. Not true at all. He helped me in every way, on a tactical level, in terms of game intelligence because his philosophy requires a lot of intelligence.
"He knew my style of play wasn’t waiting in possession, it was cutting inside, it wasn’t waiting out on the right. Before, I was a bit freer. I had to wait in my zone, and I wasn’t like that before. These are parts of my game that he tried to improve. He always wanted to help me with all of that."