Report: Arsenal Set To Announce The Signing Of Nicolas Pepe On Monday

A deal was reportedly agreed during the week and it seems the signing of Nicolas Pepe is imminent…

Arsenal are reportedly set to announce the signing of Nicolas Pepe from Lille for a club-record fee of £72million on Monday after agreeing a fee with the Ligue 1 side, MailSport reports.

News broke during the week that we’d agreed a fee with Lille for the dynamic winger which sent shockwaves around Europe given the general understanding that we had a very restricted budget this summer.

Arsenal have reached an agreement with Lille to sign Ivory Coast winger Nicolas Pepe for ~€80m, paid by instalments to fit #AFC budget. 5yr deal, agent agreement still needed but set to be closed in next 24/48hrs. Napoli also have agreement with #LOSC but agent rejected proposal

— David Ornstein (@bbcsport_david) July 27, 2019

However, after club chiefs Vinai Venkatesham and Raul Sanllehi held court in front of supporters on Thursday, the former insisted that the media were creating numbers and that our budget was higher than the reported ‘£40m’.

And, after the ownership and, in particular, Josh Kroenke told fans to “be excited”, the club seems close to pulling off one of the signings of the summer.

A winger was a priority this summer and while much of the focus was on Wilfried Zaha, it seems the decision-makers had their eye on another Ivorian.

In terms of our away form last season, that could’ve been put to our lack of wingers given their ability to carry the ball under pressure.

While our rivals were engaged in an arms race for tricker wide players, it seemed we were intent on stacking up on playmakers.

Adding Pepe would certainly be regarded as a game-changer, though one hopes the club are still in the market for a few defenders.

Our rearguard is in a very bad way and the issue surrounding Laurent Koscielny is only making it worse.