Arteta: Auba on the brink of Arsenal deal; Gabriel, Ceballos updates

Mikel Arteta has confirmed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is on the brink of signing a new three year contract.

The Arsenal boss also gave updates on deals for Gabriel Magalhaes and Dani Ceballos ahead of Arsenal’s Community Shield clash with Liverpool on Saturday.

Aubameyang, 31, has one year left on his current deal and Arsenal are close to agreeing a new three year contract worth around £250,000-a-week.

Arsenal have already signed Willian on a free transfer while they are also close to a £27m move for Lille defender Gabriel.

Arteta said: “I keep being positive, we have some really good talks with him and his agent. I am pretty confident we’re going to find an agreement soon. That’s my feeling again.

“Absolutely. And for him as well, I think. I think he should be very happy if he is able to stay at the club for a long time.

“I think people will be delighted with that news.”

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Arteta also confirmed that the club hope to announce and complete the signing of Gabriel in the coming days and admitted his admiration for the player.

“Regarding Gabriel we can’t announce anything yet, the deal is not finalised,” said Arteta. “You all know that he is a player that we follow for a long time and hopefully we can get it done.

“Everything is OK when both parties sign, the club and the player agrees the terms and he goes through the medical. Sometimes that in the last final stages is not as easy as it looks, but again we are pretty positive that we can do it.

“He’s a player we followed and were very determined that he was the right profile for us to improve our squad and if we are able to finalise it we will be delighted. We are trying to finalise the deal, that’s what I can tell you at the moment.”

Arteta also said that the club are still pursuing a deal for Dani Ceballos who they want to re-sign on another year’s loan from Real Madrid.

“Well we have had some talks,” said Arteta. “Dani knows really well what I think about him – he was pretty clear with me as well that his intention was to remain with us.

“But obviously Real Madrid are involved and we don’t know yet what they want to to do with the player. Obviously he is a player we are interested in because we really saw in the last months of the season what he is capable of bringing to us.”

But Arteta insisted that Arsenal are aiming for the top this season irrespective of what happens in the transfer market.

He added: “Let’s see what we look like at the end of the transfer window. Not a lot of teams have gone in aggressively so a lot of things are going to happen from now until October 6.

“I would probably be in a better condition but it does not matter with the squad we have because we will challenge for the top, 100 per cent.”