When Arsenal were first linked with Nicolas Pepe in November last year, he was rated at just £27m.

As I was looking for something else I came across this post from 21 November, 2018, which talked about our supposed interest in Nicolas Pepe.

We all know that he finally signed for Arsenal this summer for a club-record fee of £72m but do you remember when he would have only cost us £27m?

That was back when Danny Welbeck had not long broken his ankle and the club were considering a move in the January 2019 window.

Of course, as we know now, we didn’t have any cash to sign anyone then. Instead, we waited to this summer by which time Pepe’s price had inverted from 27 to 72.

Arsenal paid Lille £20m upfront and the rest of the £72m will be paid over the next five years.

Even if Arsenal had the cash to spend in January, Lille had no interest in letting Pepe leave.

Arsenal were first reported to be scouting Pepe in September 2018 at a time when the only other clubs being linked were Sevilla and Real Betis.

By the time he signed for Arsenal, he had turned down offers from five of the biggest clubs in Europe.