Arsenal legend Martin Keown and Liverpool great Michael Owen have both provided some strong views on summer signing Nicolas Pepe.
The £72m signing has failed to deliver so far since moving from Lille to the Gunners in the summer transfer window and whilst it's early on in the season, the BT Sport pundits didn't hold back with their verdicts on the forward.
Pepe scored 22 league goals in the Ligue 1 last season for Lille but has struggled to acclimatise to the Premier League after finding the back of the net once in his first seven league games for the club.
Whilst Pepe didn't start in Arsenal's 4-0 win over Standard Liege on Thursday, Keown and Owen were quick to criticise the player in light of Gabriel Martinelli's strong performance at the Emirates as the 18-year-old bagged a brace.
"We’re talking a lot of positives about Arsenal at the moment but I think there is one little negative eating away and that is Pepe," Owen told BT Sport.
"I was excited by him, I saw him in the French league and he looked a very good player, he started the first game and looked like he had a bag of tricks but he’s just gone off the boil.
"That’s a huge investment for anybody but it is a huge investment for Arsenal.
"I’d like to see him come on and play really well today, against an average team, show his stuff and get a bit of confidence.
"That’s a concern."
Keown added: "If you think back to Arsene Wenger, he would have never of blocked the path of a young player but they are in danger of doing that with Bukayo Saka.
"Pepe, is he going to get into the team? It’s a massive amount of money they have paid for him and Lille will be laughing all the way to the bank with that one.
"It’s still early days and maybe the player will turn it around but I haven’t really seen what I expected to see from him."
