When it comes to Nicolas Pépé leaving Lille in January, the official stance is he’s going absolutely nowhere.
However, money talks, which is what L’Equipe were hinting on Monday morning in their daily newspaper, explaining that €50m could change their minds.
They also made it very clear that Arsenal were very interested, as Unai Emery is said to ‘adore’ the Ivory Coast international, who is having a season for the ages with the Ligue 1 side so far.
Scoring 12 goals and picking up seven assists in the first 18 games of the campaign, the 23-year-old has been the definition of ‘key player’ in Lille’s incredible run of form, and the Spanish manager wants a bit of it.
As always, we’ll be honest, and we suggest you take the following with a pinch of salt for now, but JeunesFooteux appear to be taking a gamble by claiming an offer from the Gunners is being prepared for the next few days in an attempt to sway Lille.
The website, who have started throwing bits of information here and there over the past couple of weeks (and we’re still not sure how much we can trust them), state Arsenal want to purchase Pépé from Lille as early as January with a €40m + bonus bid, and then loan him back to the Ligue 1 outfit until the end of the season.
This way, everyone wins.
We’ll file it in the archives for now, but we’ll come back to it if there’s any real movement on the horizon.
