Let me explain where Pépé’s big complicity is. It’s his attitude and mentality.

Yes, conditions haven’t been fair to him for the most part & the club hasn’t given him enough consistent starts to prove himself (like I highlighted in the other thread), but his attitude stinks too.

He doesn’t get angry enough. When he gets benched, he doesn’t react like he should. He doesn’t see it as a personal insult & enter the pitch with enough anger to decimate everyone. An academy boy is benching you & you’re just resigned & shrugging your shoulders. It irritates me.

Price tags are a big burden but you have to be angry enough to want to not be termed a flop. You have to have the attitude of someone who wants it enough, such that even when everyone and everything is against you, you bend things to your will out of anger.

Also, when you’re in awful form, you’re supposed to make up for it by running ten times harder. You’re supposed to fight and work hard for the team since you can’t contribute with your abilities. This is what a player like Lacazette does (and did when he was off form).

It comes back to attitude/mentality. Pépé doesn’t have the mentality to react well to turmoil & the right kind of arrogance. He folds instead of returning with fire.

If he reacted like a top player should, he’d have found a way in spite of the awful circumstances.

He’s too comfortable. I have a theory. I don’t think he ever imagined he’d be at a club like Arsenal in his life. The way the 2 seasons at Lille went and his stock rose so quickly, it probably surprised him. Whether he succeeds at Arsenal or not, for him, he outdid himself.

This is not the first time it’s happening to him btw. It happened in his youth days. It made scouts skip him a lot. Doesn’t react well to adversity or being sidelined. He’s fallen back into old awful habits as things haven’t gone his way.