For Mikel Arteta, it is a tale of four forwards, all with an uncertain future. While Arsenal have surged from last to fourth, each of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Nicolas Pepe and Eddie Nketiah could be eyeing the exit.
Aubameyang has been the headline act, the deposed club captain who has been omitted from the squad for the last four games. Arteta insisted he has not selected his squad to face Norwich on Sunday, so the Gabonese’s exile could continue indefinitely. “We will go game by game,” said the manager, giving few clues. But other attackers’ form has lessened the need to recall Aubameyang.
And a £56 million buy may not be the most expensive issue at the Emirates Stadium. Nicolas Pepe is the club record signing, a player whose £72 million fee long appeared excessive.
Pepe finished last season with five goals in three games and scored in Tuesday’s 5-1 Carabao Cup defeat of Sunderland but has not started in the Premier League for two months and has played just seven minutes in Arsenal’s last eight top-flight fixtures. He has been sidelined by the form of Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard. He has voiced his unhappiness with Arteta.
“A player that doesn’t play, if he’s happy you have a big problem,” said the Arsenal manager. “Nico has not been happy, he’s been trying to challenge us and asking us for more minutes because this is what he wants to do and rightly so. That’s the attitude we want from our players.”
Pepe has a contract until 2024. He and Arsenal may be stuck with each other. In contrast, Lacazette and Nketiah’s deals expire in the summer. Nketiah scored a close-range hat-trick against Sunderland but has had only 38 minutes of Premier League football this season. He is yet to really benefit from Aubameyang’s fall from grace. “With the way he’s performing and training, he deserves more minutes, regardless of what happens with any other player,” said Arteta.
At 22, Nketiah has only made 13 league starts in his career. He was a target for Crystal Palace in the summer and while Arteta is keen to keep him, he has rejected Arsenal’s offers of a new deal.
“The [current] contract has an expiry date and you cannot control that and we have had discussions with Eddie for a long time,” said the Spaniard.
“His genuine intention is that he wants to play football and that's the thing that is driving whatever decision he's going to take for his future and you have to respect that. He’s a player that we admire and that we want to keep, that has come through the system and we will continue to do our best to keep him because we want him to be part of our project.”
Only Lacazette of the quartet looks pivotal now. “We are really happy,” Arteta said. “The way he's performing, the way he's acting and he has to continue like this.”
Lacazette has taken the armband from Aubameyang and was hugely influential in Saturday’s 4-1 win at Leeds, but could discuss a free transfer move to a foreign club from the start of January. His options, however, could involve spearheading a youthful and in-form Arsenal side.
The cloud on the horizon for Arteta is the possibility games in England could go back behind closed doors in England, as they will in Wales and Scotland. “Please don't go back to that stage,” said Arteta. “Because we have experienced that and it's something we don't like so hopefully it's not what happens. Nobody wants to go back to where we were.”
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Best Academy: Ajax and Benfica
Best Agent: Jorge Mendes
Best Club : Liverpool
Best Coach: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)
Best Goalkeeper: Alisson Becker
Best Men’s Player: Cristiano Ronaldo
Best Partnership of the Year Award by SportBusiness: Manchester City and SAP
Best Referee: Stephanie Frappart
Best Revelation Player: Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid and Portugal)
Best Sporting Director: Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)
Best Women's Player: Lucy Bronze
Best Young Arab Player: Achraf Hakimi
Kooora – Best Arab Club: Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)
Kooora – Best Arab Player: Abderrazak Hamdallah (Al-Nassr FC, Saudi Arabia)
Player Career Award: Miralem Pjanic and Ryan Giggs
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJune%202022%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMohammed%20Alnamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMicrofinance%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E16%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeries%20A%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFamily%20offices%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Trump v Khan
2016: Feud begins after Khan criticised Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban to US
2017: Trump criticises Khan’s ‘no reason to be alarmed’ response to London Bridge terror attacks
2019: Trump calls Khan a “stone cold loser” before first state visit
2019: Trump tweets about “Khan’s Londonistan”, calling him “a national disgrace”
2022: Khan’s office attributes rise in Islamophobic abuse against the major to hostility stoked during Trump’s presidency
July 2025 During a golfing trip to Scotland, Trump calls Khan “a nasty person”
Sept 2025 Trump blames Khan for London’s “stabbings and the dirt and the filth”.
Dec 2025 Trump suggests migrants got Khan elected, calls him a “horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor”
