Arsenal have announced the signing of French teenager William Saliba.
The 18-year-old defender becomes the Gunners' third signing of the summer transfer window following the arrival of Brazilian youngster Gabriel Martinelli from Ituano and Dani Ceballlos on loan from Real Madrid.
A fee of £27m was agreed with Saint-Etienne last week and an announcement comes after Saliba completed his medical.
It has also been confirmed that Saliba will spend this season on loan with the Ligue 1 outfit, meaning fans will have to wait a year to see the defender in Arsenal colours.
However, Unai Emery did explain over the weekend as to why the club were willing to agree to such a deal.
"Really I am with patience because we want to choose the best solution," Emery said when asked by football.london why he was happy to wait a season for Saliba.
"Some players are very expensive and we are waiting for this possibility. We don't want now to go to the second line of players.
"We are waiting. We have very good players. We have very good young players.
"We are aware also that we need to improve some players in this squad but only, only I want to sign one, two, three or four players only if we can be sure they are coming to improve our team.
"There are a lot of names. The club is working, [technical director] Edu is very close to me and Raul [Sanllehi, head of football]. We speak every day.
"Here we spoke with the Kroenke family.
"I want to send a message to all our supporters - we're very happy to be here with a lot of Arsenal supporters and are very impressed - we are working and preparing and we want to make the best squad possible.
"Our ambition and motivation is with all the supporters."
