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Nicolas Pepe shone for Arsenal during their Europa League win on Thursday night.
It was a great night for the Gunners’ record-breaking signing that drew negative headlines over the weekend for a reckless red card during the 0-0 draw with Leeds United in the Premier League.
Pepe carved a huge dent in Arsenal’s hopes of leaving Elland Road with three points after heading Ezgjan Alioski in an incident with no ball picked up by VAR.
Pepe in search of redemption
The Ivorian issued the following apology on his Instagram account: “I dropped my team at a crucial moment in the match and there are no excuses for my behavior.”
“I am deeply sorry and would like to apologize to the fans, my teammates, my coach and the rest of the club.”
But they say actions speak louder than words and Pepe rewarded Arsenal fans with an excellent display during his next appearance when Mikel Arteta’s men qualified for the Europa League round of 32.
0-3 Arsenal mold
Despite all the club’s troubles in the Premier League this season, they have barely been wrong in the European secondary competition and that was the case during the trip to Molde.
The Norwegian club, famous home to Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, was beaten 3-0 on their own ground and Pepe proved to be the star player for the visitors.
Goals from Reiss Nelson and Folarin Balogun secured the three points later in the game, but it was a magical moment for Pepe that broke the stalemate in Scandinavia.
Summary of Pepe vs Molde
Say what you want about Pepe, who is valued by Transfermarkt at £ 36 million, but there’s no denying that he has quality to spare on his left foot and that couldn’t have been clearer than when he threw a glorious top corner punch.
Combine that with creating a number of chances for your teammates with roundabouts as well as almost scoring Arsenal’s best goal of 2020 and it’s fair to say that Pepe was quite fantastic.
So, do yourself a favor and check out Pepe’s individual highlights from the Molde victory, courtesy of Twitter user @ RSComps7, down:
Fair play, Nicolas
Yeah yeah we hear cynics complaining it’s just a Europa League match but you can only beat what’s in front of you and Pepe made sure to leave it all on the field this week.
It is a credit to the attitude of the former Lille striker who did not allow the Leeds drama to play on his mind and instead focused his energy on making sure he recovered stronger this time around.
There’s a long way to go for Pepe to fully redeem himself, don’t get us wrong, but those glorious 58 seconds of him dazzling Molde will show Arsenal fans that he’s on his way to do so.
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