Arsenal has signed Mohamed Elneny from Basel for £7 million.

Elneny becomes Arsenal's first signing of the January transfer window and first signing of an outfield player since last January.

"Overall I believe he will be a good addition to the squad for many reasons," Wenger told Arsenal's official website. "He is a player who is adaptable in midfield. He can be box-to-box player but he can as well be a holding player so that is for us very interesting. We wanted a versatile player and I wanted a player who can play purely defensively but can also play box-to-box."

Wenger said he began the process of signing Elneny in December after Francis Coquelin went out injured, but they had been monitoring him for over a year.