Arsenal Complete The Signing Of Mohamed Elneny

After their draw at Anfield on Wednesday night, Arsenal will finally be getting the reinforcements they desperately need; the club has officially signed Mohamed Elneny from FC Basel.

Elneny is a defensive midfielder, which fills the gunners’ biggest weakness. While the Francis Coquelin-Santi Cazorla partnership emerged during last year’s campaign, both of those players are currently injured; there is a chance that the latter will barely figure in the remainder of this season. Elneny can provide additional cover for that central role, which has primarily filled by Aaron Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini.

“It is an indescribable feeling, I am really glad of course,” he told the team’s official site. “Arsenal is one of the world’s greatest teams, and I am very keen to participate positively with my new team, God willing, and to give my best for the team and for myself.”

Manager Arsene Wenger thinks the young Egyptian will be a good addition to the squad; his time playing with Basel should mean he is relatively used to competing at the highest levels of European football.

“He can be box to box and be a holding midfielder so that is for us very promising. We wanted a versatile player and I wanted a player who can play defensive but can as well play to box to box,” Wenger said. “His strengths are his technical level, his vision, his intelligence, his disciplined attitude and his physical attitude to compete at a high level. I think he has the physical qualities to play at the top level.

While it’s unlikely that he’ll play after only a few days working with the team, there’s a chance that Elneny makes into Arsenal’s squad for this weekend’s game against Stoke.

 

Photo:Mohamed Elneny of FC Basel runs with the ball during the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round 2nd leg match between FC Basel 1893 and KKS Lech Poznan at St. Jakob-Park on August 5, 2015 in Basel, Switzerland. (Photo by Philipp Schmidli/Getty Images)