10 players whose transfer fee didn't match their talents

#7 Nicolas Pepe - £72m (Lille to Arsenal, 2019)

Nicolas Pepe's £72m transfer fee was a huge risk on a somewhat unproven player

Okay, so it’d be unfair to write off Nicolas Pepe as a big-money flop at this stage; in fact, the Ivorian winger has begun to hit form lately, and has thus far scored 4 goals and registered 6 assists in his 23 Premier League appearances for Arsenal during the current campaign. He may well go on to become one of the league’s best performers in the near future, in fact.

Even if that’s the case, though, the truth is that he’ll probably need to go on to become an all-time great in England’s top flight to justify what was realistically an insane transfer fee. The Gunners paid a club record £72m for the winger last summer, making him the joint 17th most expensive footballer of all time in the process.

Had Pepe done enough at his previous clubs to justify that kind of fee? In a word, no. Prior to his move to North London, the Ivorian international had played just 3 full seasons in France’s Ligue 1, and only one of them – 2018-19 – saw him put together some truly outstanding stats, scoring 22 goals and registering 11 assists in 38 appearances for Lille.

But surely 1 strong season in what is realistically a B-level league can’t be considered enough to justify such a huge price tag – meaning there’s a ton of pressure on Pepe to succeed that wouldn’t normally have been placed upon him.