France-born Ivorian professional footballer, Nicolas Pepe, is set to leave Arsenal this summer.
Popular football transfer expert, Fabrizio Romano revealed this on Thursday, September 6, on X, formerly known as Twitter.
According to him, Pepe is completely out of the Premier League club’s project.
OsunDailyNG understands that Pepe, who was linked with Saudi Arabian clubs, is now set to sign for Turkish club – Trabzonspor.
“Nicolas Pépé, not convinced by Saudi approaches—deal not happening, his priority is now to join Trabzonspor. Negotiations to follow in order to reach an agreement, as @footmercato called, he’s completely out of Arsenal project,” Fabrizio posted on Thursday.
Pepe has one year left on his Arsenal contract but was not expected to feature under manager Mikel Arteta again.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s goalkeeper, Kepa Arrizabalaga, who is currently on loan at Real Madrid, seems not to be a fan of how the new owners of the Blues, led by Todd Boehly, have been handling the club.
Since he and his consortium took over Chelsea in 2022, Todd Boehly has spent over £1 billion in signing new players within just three transfer windows.
Despite the heavy investment in bringing in new players, Chelsea has remained one of the worst-performing clubs in the Premier League.
Last season, they finished below the top ten on the Premier League table and failed to qualify for any European competition despite spending heavily in the transfer market.
So far this season, they have managed to record one win, one draw, and two defeats in four games, a performance that left them in the 12th spot currently.
Kepa, who was an integral part of the abysmal Chelsea squad last season, wasn’t sure of his place in the team under new manager Mauricio Pochettino, especially after the club signed another goalkeeper Robert Sanchez this summer.
Fortunately for the 28-year-old Spanish goalkeeper, Real Madrid’s first-choice goalie, Thibaut Courtois, ruptured his ACL, which forced him to be sidelined. Hence, Madrid brought in Kepa on a season-long loan to replace the Belgian goalie.
In an interview with Spanish radio COPE, Kepa said he didn’t give it a second thought when he had the opportunity to leave Chelsea for Real Madrid this summer as he blasted Todd Boehly’s “project”.
“I felt it was time for a change of scenery.
“I wanted to stay, but I felt that the project was not the right one,” he said.
