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Arsenal are planning to sign a new wide option to replace the outgoing Nicolas Pepe, Mikel Arteta has confirmed, with Wolves forward Pedro Neto at the top of the Gunners’ wishlist.
Club record signing Pepe joined Nice on loan this week and though the club will continue to pay a significant proportion of his wages, his departure has opened up a space in the Arsenal depth chart that they had been intending to fill with a different wide option.
Neto would be their favored option but it will be a challenge to convince Wolves to sell their most valuable attacking prospect. The Premier League club are under no pressure to sell, having earned an initial £25 million from Nottingham Forest for Morgan Gibbs-White, a fee that could ultimately rise to £42m. Arsenal have alternative options but will not replace Pepe simply for the sake of it. The Ivorian himself serves as a £72m reminder of what happens when a player is recruited without the backing of the entire club.
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Asked whether Pepe would be replaced, Arteta said: “If we can implement the plan that we have, we will try to do [it]. In that plan, that [Pepe leaving] was something that could happen. Now it is a reality and we have been preparing the last two months in order to achieve what we want. Whether that is possible or not, we will see.
“At the start of the window we signed players before getting other players out. Now we have done something different, we have let a player go and maybe [we’ll] be able to recruit…
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Source : cbssports
