Unai Emery hailed it a perfect night for Arsenals’ record signing who curled in two late free-kicks to salvage victory against Vitoria.
Nicloas Pepe came off the bench replacing Alexander Lacazette with Arsenal trailing 2-1 and looking devoid of any sort of invention as Emery rolled a dice and the change paid dividends within five minutes.
The French winger has struggled since his summer arrival, he desperately needed one and with Thursday’s sensational cameo it might just spark his Arsenal career.
Arsenal boss Emery said: “I think the two goals from Pepe was perfect. We deserved to win. But we didn’t play well. Normally players need time for adaptation.
“Pepe is a very good player. We believe in him totally. He his improving. Tonight’s two goals are really important for us and for him. He will continue his adaptation.
“We are really happy for him, for us. He was doing a lot of set-piece shooting on the training ground last week.
“The result is very important for us. Our objective is to finish top of the group. In the first half we lost the ball a lot and gave them a lot of chances.
“In the second half we controlled the match. Tonight we played more with our emotion and heart than with our organisation.”
With Arsenal looking second best before Pepe’s late intervention, Arsenal faithful chanted for Mesut Ozil, who was again completely left out of the squad by Unai.
The Gunners boss said: “I think tonight is not the day to speak about that. He is not in the squad. That is the decision.”
Hector Bellerin’s post-match interview: “We were resilient, we had more chances than just the goals at the end.” #AFC #Arsenal pic.twitter.com/56L5VMWyc6
— AFCMike (@AFCPW) October 24, 2019
Defender Hector Bellerin said: “It’s a great result for us, especially the way the game went. We went from very good wins at the Emirates with lots of goals. We wanted to replicate that but sometimes games are different.
“They are a good team, with good players up top but it’s the response. It can be the whole team together or individual players and that’s what it was today.
“People thought it was going to be very easy because they’d lost two games, but we knew it wouldn’t be like that, we knew it would be hard.
“We were resilient, we had more chances than just the goals at the end. The team kept believing and we turned it around at the end.
“There’s lots of things we’ve got to improve as a team. We’ve got to keep the ball better, that’s our trademark.
“When you give the ball away it doesn’t mean you stop playing like that, it’s in our DNA. You need to keep pushing and doing what you believe in.”
Kieran Tierney’s game by numbers vs. Vitoria:
100% tackles won
88% pass accuracy
8 ball recoveries
2 interceptions
1 big chance created
1 assistWill make a huge difference to Arsenal once he starts regularly. 🏴 pic.twitter.com/yFoiN9MqzT
— Statman Dave (@StatmanDave) October 24, 2019
Defender Kieran Tierney said: “It showed the other side of our game. The Standard Liege game was different, we scored four goals and it was comfortable. It shows we’ve got fight and desire.
“When teams come here the pressure is on us, so it gives them more freedom, the expectation is on us, but we got the three points and that’s the main thing.”
