Mohamed Elneny shirt number: why the Basel man will not be able to retain number when he moves to Arsenal

Mohamed Elneny is closing in on his transfer to Arsenal from FC Basel, his Basel team-mate has confirmed it, Basel themselves said it would happen "in the coming days" and there has been a sly grin across Arsene Wenger's face every time he is posed a question about him.

Reports emerged this morning saying that Arsenal could even announce the deal today, so all that needs to be sorted is his shirt number.

Elneny wears the No 33 shirt for the Swiss side, but he will not be able to retain his shirt, as that is occupied by Petr Cech.

The reasons for this, as the Czech goalkeeper revealed this summer, is because he is 33 years old, he has made 333 Premier League appearances and...because the spine has 33 vertebrae, and he wants to be part of the spine of the team.

Cech's tweets about his shirt number from earlier this summer:

So there you go, no chance of keeping that No 33 at the Gunners for Elneny.