Darren Bent defends record Arsenal flop and makes comparison with failed Man Utd duo

Former Premier League star Darren Bent believes that Nicolas Pepe has been treated harshly over his spell at Arsenal because of his initial price tag and defended the player’s efforts at the Emirates.

Pepe had joined Arsenal from Ligue 1 side Nice for a then club-record fee of £72m (€85m, $94m) in August 2019 but made just 112 appearances for the Gunners before being released in 2023.

Bent believes that the numbers behind Pepe’s spell at Arsenal also don’t match the narrative around how terrible he was for the Londoners.

“If you look at Pepe’s stats compared to Antony and Sancho’s combined. He was still okay, he wasn’t rubbish,” Bent said on talkSPORT.

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“He was okay. Listen, his stats are better than Sancho and Antony. I am talking about two players – that’s combined. He was okay. I think he was harshly treated because of the price tag.”

After the Gunners splashed a record fee on the Ivorian international, his performances failed to live up to expectations and his final season on the books at Arsenal was spent out on loan at Nice.

He found the intense criticism he was subjected to as an Arsenal player extremely tough to deal with and never truly settled at the club.

Pepe fell out of love with football at Arsenal

Speaking to L’Equipe, Pepe had revealed that he lost his passion for playing the game while at Arsenal although he would commend the fans for backing him through tough times.

Pepe felt that the criticism of his play at Arsenal went to extremes and he found he had no way to shut it out.

“It was almost harassment. I don’t look at social media much, but if my brother told me, “This is what they said about you,” it would affect me unconsciously. It also came from the media or from certain members of the club. They don’t realise that it can affect the mental state, the family, and it affects performance,” Pepe said.

“The only people who have always supported me are the Arsenal fans. At Arsenal, I suffered a kind of trauma, as if my passion had been ripped away from me. I had a disgust for football. I doubted myself to the point that I thought about quitting everything. I wondered how they could have been so relentless in their attacks on me. They even called me the biggest flop in the history of the Premier League. But I refused to mope.”

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