To me, it’s not a confidence issue. He is not playing badly. He just isn’t really adding anything because he has not figured out how to get into good positions to shoot. I don’t know why some people want to blame Emery for that. I think Pepe has to figure that out himself.
I think people , I mean the fans and media are totally overreacting. Pepe is in a new league and a new country. It's going to take him time to adapt. TH14 didn't score in his first 7 or 9 matches? Not saying he is Theirry but give the guy time. It doesn't help that he has a manager who isn't playing to his strengths at all. Many fans were slagging off Laca when he went through a rough patch in his 1st season and now he is beloved and rightly so. Just calm down.
Pepe miss on that sitter vs Sheffield will get all the attention but he actually played well. He was more confident, he took on defenders and got himself in good positions. He was the most dangerous player and then Emery takes him off like seriously. Then it seems like he is blaming Pepe for the loss in his post game presser. Pepe is being so badly managed and he is not being put in positions to be successful.
He was our best player by far on Monday. Granted with the team's overall performance that's a low bar, but he was quite good even taking the miss into consideration. Saka was having a bit of a rough outing but if you wanted to take a kitchen sink approach, not sure why Chamber or Kolasinac weren't pulled for Martinelli in those last 5 minutes. That would've made more sense than Pepe being subbed.
OK this team is very troubling at the moment, but if you don't have a big on your face after watching what Nicolas Pepe did tonight, I don't know what to tell you. Those were 2 of the finest free kicks you'll ever see. And he single-handedly came of the bench late in the game and won us all 3 pts. A super-duper game-changing MOTM performance. Thanks Nico... so happy for you.
I wish I could've seen it live. The first one looked like a misread by the keeper, but it's difficult to tell from the replays. No question the technique was there on both kicks, however. It was also interesting that Pepe didn't really celebrate either goal. Not sure what was going on there, was there just a lot of frustration throughout the match? More relief than exuberance?
So happy for Pepe. I think he didnt celebrate because he was more relieved than happy. He has been under a lot of pressure and getting a lot of unfair criticism. Those free kicks were amazing. Hopefully he can gain confidence from this carry this into the PL.
I thought so too at first on the first free kick. But on replay, it looked like one of those situations where the keeper leaned/started to step the wrong way right when Pepe struck the ball, so he was toast.
Hear me out. Since September 1st:Nicolas Pépé goal contributions - 6Manchester United goals (all comps) - 6 https://t.co/4PYmO1KTY9— Dan Critchlow (@afcDW) October 25, 2019
Artea view on Pepe https://www.google.com/amp/s/metro....elsea-mikel-arteta-nicolas-pepe-11969748/amp/ I understand the how you practice is how you play concept but is he that bad in training to now warrant a last 10 minute please save us role. I do agree with the criticism that he doesn't track back and leaves a lot of space open and he needs to take a cue from Aubameyang work rate yesterday and give more effort but he is a much better option than Reiss Nelson right...
Allow me to inexpertly opine on Pepe. I feel like he came here with a certain expectation of how to play, and then was asked to do a few things differently and/or additionally by Emery and he had to learn to do those things in order to play. My feeling is that new things don't come easily to him and so he lost some of his confidence trying to both play the way he does and play the way Emery wanted him to. Now that Emery is gone, Arteta is asking him to now adopt his style and spacing which is likely also new and different from what Emery asked of him, and he's gonna struggle with that too for some time until he gets it and feels comfortable and Arteta feels comfortable playing him. Pepe seemed extremely skilled at running and dribbling and attacking and scoring in France and he's finding out that in England, they have midfielders and defenders that are strong and fast and they will knock you down on your ass if you try to dance around them. So he's learning to adjust, and it will take effort, but Reiss Neslon and Saka and Willock already know this and came up playing this way. So they will get the nod over Pepe until he adjusts and can take to the pitch with confidence.
Maybe. But if you're right, then he's quite a slow learner, which is not good. And he had a long time with Emery and never fully learned/adapted/assimilated... also not good. The more I think of Pepe, I wonder who recruited him and what were they thinking?
Obviously it's nearly impossible to know that since I doubt players are inclined to come out about that publicly. But we're pretty sure that Pepe has failed to adapt, assimilate or impress... for going on 3 head coaches now. And the word is that his lack of defensive skill/effort is a significant issue. That is what I was alluding to when I mused "who recruited him and what were they thinking?" All that said, I've been calling for all 3 coaches to use him more. And been frustrated by that not happening. In fact, just yesterday I brought this up in the MD thread, calling Arteta out for not bringing him on much earlier.
I'm pretty chill. But for a 24YO $90M phenom, who has no major injury/fitness issue that I've heard of, it's not a great look that he hasn't been able to crack our XI. And under multiple head coaches. Just sayin.
I'm just listening to Arsecast and James' theory is that you can't play Ozil & Pepe at the same time, partly because of their mutual defensive weakness. So since Ozil is currently in favor, Pepe sits. So with festive fixture congestion this week and just 2 days rest before United on Weds, maybe we'll see the inverse... Pepe start & Ozil sit.