There’s nobody alive who doesn’t know that Arsenal agreed to pay £72m for Nicolas Pepe when they bought him from Lille in 2019.

But given how those payments were structured, did you know they still have £10.8m left to pay?

A little over two years after he was sacked from Arsenal, Raul Sanllehi gave an interview to The Athletic.

Looking back at our archives, one article analysed what fans deemed Sanllehi’s ‘finest hour’ at Arsenal: the 2019 transfer window.

Hindsight is, of course, a wonderful thing, but it was clear even then that Arsenal had vastly overpaid for Pepe, a deal that would ultimately cost Sanllehi is position at Arsenal.

Pepe was, after all, valued at just £27m the season before when Arsenal were first linked with him. 23 goals and 12 assists in 41 appearances in the 18/19 season saw that valuation increase to £58.5m, reaching a peak of £67.5m a month after Arsenal signed him.

In that window, Arsenal were widely reported to only have around £40m to spend.

Somehow, they still managed to sign David Luiz (£7.83m), Dani Ceballos (£15m loan fee first season) , Kieran Tierney (£24.3m), William Saliba (£27m), Gabriel Martinelli (£6.39m), and, of course, Nicolas Pepe (£72m), for a total outlay of £152.52m.

While that was much more than Arsenal were supposed to be able to spend, it was the £72m for Pepe that generated all the headlines in a world where price is meant to equal talent.

In this case, it most certainly did not.

Although he exhibited his skills occasionally, he failed to maintain that standard consistently.

At the start of the 2022-2023 season, when he found himself warming the bench for the first two matches, it became evident that Mikel Arteta had no plans to reintegrate Pepe into the first-team squad.

In a bid to resurrect his career, Arsenal loaned Pepe to Ligue 1 outfit Nice, where he made 28 appearances and netted eight goals.

Despite a lack of takers in the transfer market this summer, Arsenal decided to cut ties with their former record signing. The club ultimately terminated his contract, allowing Pepe to join Trabzonspor on a free transfer.

He has signed a one-year deal there.

Arsenal reportedly paid £20m upfront for the Ivorian with the remaining £52m to be paid in instalments over the next five years up to 2024, when Pepe’s contract with Arsenal was meant to end.

That works out at £10.4m-a-year.

With just one year left until then, that leaves £10.4m outstanding.

• 2019 £20m initial fee (paid)
• 2020 £10.4m instalment (paid)
• 2021 £10.4m instalment (paid)
• 2022 £10.4m instalment (paid)
• 2023 £10.4m instalment (assuming paid)
• 2024 £10.4m instalment (outstanding)

Of course, there is the possibility than Arsenal have cleared this early but, as you know, if a ‘loan’ isn’t going to cost you money to repay over a longer period, most people would prefer to keep the cash in their own bank so they can collect the interest.

Also, reports in a number of outlets (Mirror, S*n) seem to think this amount is still outstanding.

Arsenal contract cancellations

This move marks Nicolas Pepe as the latest in a line of Arsenal outcasts to see their contracts terminated during Arteta’s tenure.

The list includes the likes of Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Shkodran Mustafi, Sead Kolasinac, Willian, and Hector Bellerin.

Arsenal’s financial situation has been under scrutiny in recent years, and the departure of Pepe without a transfer fee being recouped is another blow.

While the club made significant signings, shelling out over £200 million in the summer transfer window, they only managed to recoup around £57 million.

This sum includes the sales of Folarin Balogun to Monaco and Granit Xhaka’s move to Bayer Leverkusen.