Nicolas Pepe and the Ivory Coast have been eliminated from the Africa Cup of Nations, despite another positive performance from the Arsenal man.

The Ivory Coast suffered a heartbreaking penalty-shootout defeat to Egypt on Wednesday, exiting AFCON at the last-16 stage.

Arsenal’s Nicolas Pepe scored his penalty though, trusted by his country to take their first after a strong individual tournament.

The Arsenal winger initially started the group stage on the bench, playing just 19 minutes of Ivory Coast’s opening game against Equatorial Guinea. But after a few shots and 90% pass accuracy in that cameo, he got a chance to start against Sierra Leone.

Pepe took full advantage of the opportunity, scoring a nice goal, creating five chances, and winning the Man of the Match award.

That led to another start in the final group game against Algeria, and it was another chance Pepe made count. On that occasion, he scored one and assisted one in a 3-1 win.

That led Ivory Coast to the top of the group and saw them matched up with Egypt in the first knockout round.

Once again, Pepe impressed, creating four chances including one big chance, completing all three of his attempted dribbles, and having a couple of shots on target.

But despite those efforts, Eric Bailly’s penalty miss consigned him to an early exit. Mohamed Elneny and Omar Rekik are the only Arsenal players left in the tournament now.

Arsenal will hope Pepe returns in similar form, as he’ll now certainly be available by the time the winter break is over.

The only frustrating thing is the Gunners have so few games to make the most of his form over the next month.