Quote Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE View Post
When we spent that money we were sold an instant hero. As usual we got it wrong again by ignoring the obvious. A lot of us, at that time, said that money would have been better spent on a proven EPL talent like his country man Zaha . In fact even Emery got it right as he wanted Zaha but was overruled by the suits. There is no doubt Pepe is a talent, but he never proved himself in any other team but Lille (even on international duty) and Ligue 1.

Now going back to the "problem".... as far as I am concerned there isn't one. Yes we paid a huge fee and yes he earns shitloads, however that means nothing as long as the better players ATM always starts over him...which is what is happening now and was not happening under Emery. Pepe will not be the first Arsenal player not to pull up trees his early years and later become an essential player in the squad ( Edu, Flamini, Song, Eboue,RVP etc). He's still young and can get better. Its similar to the way we got rid of Gervinho to early and what about the kid at Bayern??

So as long as he gets no undeserved starts, keeps showing a good work ethic and causes no conflict in the team, I would keep him. I would only sell if I knew I could get close to his worth back , 60mish and thats not happening now. So lets give him more time, as time is what we have afforded all the idiots running the club.
There is a problem!!! We are paying him huge wages and still paying off the transfer fee for a player who is deemed not good enough to start for us in arguably our weakest team in decades!!! That's an issue mate, lets not dress it up any other way.

What makes it worse is, if we do put him up for sale we'd be lucky to recoup even half of the fee!

Pepe is what 24? he needs to be delivering right now, that's what we paid for, an instant impact. He's not a teenager or some project we can work on for season upon season. When do we wait? Until he is 28?

Sure, we have no choice but to keep him, maybe even loan him if we can to a club who will give him regular game time to build up his confidence? Which club is going to loan him though when he is on huge wages??? We are stuck with him.