Mohamed Elneny was an unknown entity when he arrived at Arsenal last week after his long drawn out transfer from Basle, and I for one expected the Egyptian international to take time to settle and get to know his surroundings and his team-mates, but it looks like he has put his head down and got straight into vigorous training with the first team squad.
He has certainly impressed Olivier Giroud already. “I’ve trained with him and he’s a good player, very talented but first of all he is a good guy – I think he will settle well into the team,” Giroud said on the Arsenal Official website. “I think he’s basically a box-to-box midfielder, so he can attack and defend, run a lot and has good power and technique. He is quite a complete player.
“It always takes time to adapt to English football because there is a lot of intensity, it is very physical and even tactically [you must get used to it] – but I think Premier League football will suit him well.”
Mohamed certainly has a wealth of experience in Europe and also at international level. His former coach is Bob Bradley, who nurtured him through the ranks in the Egyptian side, and he thinks that Arsenal fans may be surprised at his old star player.
“When Elneny started he was still young, he was only 19, but you could see that he trained really well every day. In the training he was improving technically. You could tell how he worked and how he wanted to get better. Little by little he became an important part of our team,” Bradley said. “His passing got sharper. He started to improve his ability with long passes. He was always a player who didn’t hesitate to shoot from distance and at that time it wasn’t always that he was scoring a lot, but you could see all these starting points.”
“He is an all-round midfielder capable of playing different roles. He reads the game, he moves well and he can play a little bit deeper,”
“He’s an all-round midfielder who can play deeper when needed, he can move forward and shoot from distance but he’s not just a guy who stays in there and breaks up plays.”
If you look at the video below, it certainly looks like Elneny is looking relaxed (and talented!). It looks like Wenger has found yet another gem…..