Nico Pepe joined Arsenal last summer in a high profile deal. He has divided opinions for the most part since his arrival, and this is due to the expectation among fans.
He helped himself to a goal and an assist versus Molde, and took his goal tally this season to four. He is currently joint top scorer in the team in all competitions this season, but he has only started one PL game.
This goes to show he is yet to earn the trust of Mikel Arteta, and the boss had this to say when he was asked what the Ivorian needed to do for more game time.
The boss replied: “Consistency. Throughout the game, throughout 90 minutes, every ball, in every action and every time he’s on the ball in the final third he [needs to] make a difference. And do it more and more and more.
“The final product has to be better, not just from him but if you want to become a top top team and score many more goals then it’s something we have to put higher demands on at the moment.
“Today he scored a really good goal and got an assist and he can do more. I think he’s on the right path.”
Arteta went on to highlight that he wants consistency from all his attackers.
“It’s not just Willian or Nico, I think in general consistency-wise in the final third, with the quality that we have, we have to finish more things better. We can improve a lot.
“That goes for every player, if Nico scores three goals then his aim has to be to score 10. Willian the same, three assists? He needs 10. If we don’t have that mindset then we won’t become the top team that we want to be.”
Mikel Arteta also agreed that his side is not scoring enough goals but he revealed that they have been working on that lately.
