7m Transfer Fee Accepted – Coquelin Replacement Passed Medical and Signed a 4 and Half Year Contract

Arsenal have reportedly sealed the deal to acquire Mohamed Elneny from FC Basel for a fee of £5million. The Egyptian International is set to have a medical and will become the first January signing for Arsenal. He will however, need to attain a work-visa in order to play for Arsenal and complete a move for a four-and-a-half-year deal.

The 23 year old has 36 caps for Egypt, and would be a replacement for Coquelin who is out injured.  Wenger would play him as a deep lying midfielder, where he will play a key role defensively and simultaneously anticipate open spaces in opponent’s defence.

Whether the deal is done or doesn’t exist will only be found out once the January window opens, however, after the defeat to Southampton, Wenger didn’t sound too keen on buying. ‘That’s always the question you get,’ Wenger said. ‘We have many players who are injured and will come back soon.

‘Buy, buy, buy, buy is always the solution that people see.’

The Gunners have failed to take advantage of inconsistency of its title rivals and this can be directly linked to the number of players Gunners have on the sidelines due to injury. Santi Cazorla, Jack Wilshere, Alexis Sanchez, Danny Welbeck, Mikel Arteta and Francis Coquelin are all absent. This leads to the exhaustion of available players as Arsene Wenger has little or no choice to play alternatives. The limit in tactics and lack of versatility in the form of players has made Arsenal unable to have a firm grip on the title race.

This is why they failed to grasp the chance to go top of the league on Boxing Day when Leicester lost to Liverpool 1-0. Arsenal had a much worse result, losing 4-0 to Southampton but they managed to win their latest fixture against Bournemouth that has for now made Gunners league leaders. Leicester has yet to play their last fixture of 2015 against Manchester City, therefore Arsenal still has the chance to retain first position if the Foxes fail to win against City.