Arsenal have signed Egyptian midfielder Mohamed Elneny from Swiss side Basel for an undisclosed fee, the Premier League leaders announced on Thursday.

 “Arsenal have signed Mohamed Elneny from FC Basel,” the club announced on their website. “Everyone at Arsenal would like to welcome Mohamed to the club.”
The club disclosed neither the length of Elneny’s contract nor the transfer fee, but British media reports suggested they had paid around £5 million ($7.2 million, 6.6 million euros) for the 23-year-old.



He played a key role for Basel winning three successive league titles in Switzerland and also helped them reach the Europa League semi-finals during his first season at the club, losing to eventual winners Chelsea. Twitter reacted to Arsenal’s signing of Elneny. Arsenal fans are seemingly very happy with the deal but the Gunners got trolled for the delay to make the deal happen.

 However, most Arsenal fans seem to be very optimistic about this transfer and feel that this might be the missing link that they were looking for a long time. It has been almost too long since the likes of Patrick Viera and Gilberto Silva used to patrol the Arsenal midfield. Some fans on Twitter have already gone on in calling him the next Gilberto. Is he? Only time can tell! Hope he adapts well at the Emirates Stadium.