The Ivory Coast star ended the campaign on a positive note, but are we being carried away by his and the club’s late-season purple patch?
Trying to assess Nicolas Pepe’s second year at Arsenal is not straightforward, owing to the club’s rather confusing campaign.
Mikel Arteta’s team had a mixed run of results at the start, were absolutely abysmal in the autumn and then found their feet for the majority of the second half of the season.
On the one hand, an eighth-place finish — which means the London giants miss out on continental football totally for the first time in 25 years — highlights the team’s decline, but their results to end 2020/21 offer some encouragement.