Arsenal have announced Mohamed Elneny has signed a contract extension until 2022.
Elneny joined Arsenal from Basel in January 2016 but has struggled to establish himself as a first-team regular since his arrival.
The 25-year-old’s previous deal was due to expire in 2020 and Arsenal have moved to secure the Egypt international’s best years.
Arsenal are still trying to re-negotiate new deals for midfield duo Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere, however.
The latter’s contract is due to expire at the end of the season, while Ramsey will only have 12 months left to run on his this summer.
Elneny has only started 19 games in all competitions this season, garnering a less-than-impressive WhoScored rating of 6.74 in league and European matches.
Of players that have started more than five Europa League matches this season, only Dante (96%) has a better pass success rate than Elneny (93.5%).
Sorry I should have mentioned the stats in my comment are Elneny's career average numbers in those categories (which is a clearer indication of the player's expected contribution than that of the player's one off season stats).
And so continues Arsenal's slide into mid table mediocrity. Elneny is Arsenal third worst central midfield option out of the 10 potential central midfielders on Arsenal's current squad. He is ineffective defensively (only contributing 1.2 tackles and 1.2 interceptions per game) and his direct transitional play is mediocre (2.6 accurate long passes and 0.3 successful forward dribbles per game). His only redeeming contribution is his passing accuracy (91%) and that is only that high because the vast majority of his passes are short, risk free and often sideways. Elneny's resigning is a pretty clear indication Wenger is sticking around next season, which is bad news for an increasingly failing Arsenal.