Mikel Arteta spoke with the press on Friday ahead of Arsenal’s game against Fulham and has explained why he sent Arsenal’s record signing out on loan until the end of the season.

Nicolas Pepe sealed his loan to OGC Nice on Thursday with Arsenal confirming their record transfer signing would be playing in Ligue 1 for the rest of the season.

With two years left on his Arsenal deal, it seems highly unlikely we will ever see Pepe in an Arsenal shirt again, this loan more a way of trying to find a buyer for the player Arsenal splashed £72m on.

Ahead of Mikel Arteta’s 100th Premier League game in charge of Arsenal this weekend, the manager was asked why he had let Pepe leave on loan.

“It’s been three years since he joined the club and he’s had some very good moments and some where he hasn’t contributed that much to the team in terms of minutes, and we have decided that for every party it was the best decision to allow him to go,” Arteta said.

“He needs minutes and needs to play football, and was really adamant to do that, and we decided it was the best thing for everybody.”

Pepe made 112 appearances for Arsenal, scoring 27 and assisting 21, but although he played 33 more games for Arsenal than he did Lille, he only played an extra 111 minutes.

For that extra time, Pepe scored 10 goals fewer but did grab three assists more than his spell in France before he signed for Arsenal.

While we all hoped at the time that Pepe would grow into his price tag, he never really came close and will eventually leave Arsenal as an expensive and pointless signing that will remind us of nothing but Raul Sanllehi’s so-called amazing contact list.