David Luiz officially became an Arsenal player on transfer deadline day, sealing an £8m move from London rivals Chelsea.
The 32-year-old has signed a two-year deal with the Gunners and is a direct replacement for Laurent Koscielny who completed a return to France earlier in the week, joining Bordeaux in rather controversial fashion.
As well as confirming the transfer on their social media channels, Arsenal also revealed that Luiz will wear the number 23 shirt at the Emirates Stadium this season.
This may have been a surprise to some fans for a couple of reasons.
1. The no.6 shirt is vacant following the aforementioned departure of ex-captain Koscielny. 2. no.23 is somewhat of an unusual number for a central defender to wear.
With that said, the last time Arsenal won the Premier League title Sol Campbell played a key role and he wore no.23.
But that's not the reason as to why Luiz has chosen to follow in the footsteps of Campbell as well as the likes of Andrey Arshavin, Nicklas Bendtner and Danny Welbeck.
The question about the shirt number choice was put to him by Arsenal managing director Vinai Venkatesham during his unveiling on deadline day.
And Luiz's reason was quite simple: "It was my first number at Benfica," he said (at around the 14.25 mark).
By making the move across London, Luiz has been reunited with Gunners head coach Unai Emery.
The pair worked together briefly at Paris Saint-Germain prior to the Brazilian returning to Chelsea in 2017 and the Spaniard has revealed what qualities he sees in the defender.
"We worked for two months together at PSG and then after three matches, the club and he decided to sign for Chelsea," Emery told reporters. "Now is the same.
"It's a very good and big opportunity for us and also the fact that he decided to change Chelsea for Arsenal is an important step.
"He wants to do something important with us, to help us do something important in the present, in the future.
"He has experience, he has quality in the build-up and he's a good defender. He's coming here to help us with his capacity and quality."
