Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has confessed Nicolas Pepe has not been happy about his lack of minutes this season.
The winger started against Sunderland on Tuesday night, scoring twice and claiming two assists, as Arsenal booked a place in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup.
That was, however, Pepe’s first start for Arsenal since October 26 and he has barely featured over the past two months as a number of promising youngsters continue to make their case to be regularly starting.
Prior to Tuesday night, Arsenal’s club-record signing had played just 12 minutes of football and Arteta has admitted the Ivorian has not been happy with the situation.
“A player that doesn’t play, if he’s happy you have a big problem and Nico has not been happy,” said Arteta.
“He’s been trying to challenge us and asking us for more minutes because this is what he wants to do, and rightly so, and this is the attitude that we want from our players.”
