KEY POINTS

  • Aubameyang had travelled to London on Tuesday (30 January) to complete his move.
  • Wenger spoke about the 28-year-old forward following his side's 3-1 loss to Swansea.

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Arsene Wenger has all but confirmed that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is an Arsenal player following the club's loss to Swansea City.

Ahead of Arsenal's visit to Wales on Tuesday (30 January), it was revealed that Aubameyang had travelled to London to complete his move to the Emirates Stadium after the Gunners agreed a £55.5m ($78.7m) fee with Borussia Dortmund for the Gabon international.

Olivier Giroud, meanwhile, is expected to make way with the Frenchman braced to join Chelsea for £18m ($25.5m) after both sides settled on a fee for the 31-year-old.

Arsenal were not able to prevent defeat later that night, however, as Swansea came back from behind to inflict a 3-1 defeat to the north Londoners in what was their second league defeat in three games.

But in a post-match interview with an Arsenal.com reporter that was seemingly uploaded by mistake, Wenger virtually confirmed Aubameyang's arrival as he spoke about the 28-year-old. Arsenal fans on Twitter were able to able to record the interview and upload it on social media.

"Yes it's good news. You know we need people who can give us offensive power. At the moment, we are not efficient enough going forward and hopefully I'm convinced he will bring us that," Wenger said when asked if he was delighted that the deal was done.

"He has a big challenge in front of him and he wants to do well in the Premier League. He is welcome and that's absolutely good news for us."

The French manager also spoke about the forward's qualities and the prospect of him linking up with former Dortmund teammate Henrikh Mkhitaryan who moved to Arsenal earlier this month.

"Overall, his pace, his finishing, the quality of his runs, the quality of his reception including crosses and overall his huge physical capacity to repeat the runs which will be important in the Premier League where the physical level is very high," Wenger added.

"We are keen to see them all [Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan] together and see how well we can do. Let's make that happen soon because it's not over the line yet but hopefully it gets done tomorrow [Wednesday]."

Aubameyang will be the club's third acquisition of the window following the arrivals of Mkhitaryan from Manchester United and Konstantinos Mavropanos from PAS Giannina.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Aubameyang has been confirmed as an Arsenal player Getty Images