The inside story of how Pablo Mari's Arsenal transfer happened

Pablo Mari has revealed that his January transfer move to Arsenal took two weeks to complete after the Gunners first declared their interest.

Mari, 26, has joined the Gunners on loan for the rest of the 2019/20 season, with the deal including an option for a permanent transfer during the summer.

The centre-back signed for Manchester City back in 2016, but never played a game for the club. The Spaniard spent loan spells at Girona, NAC and Deportivo before signing for Flamengo in 2019, and went on to star for the Brazilian club.

Mari won the Brazilian title along with Copa Libertadores, and narrowly missed out on the Fifa Club World Cup to Liverpool after taking Jurgen Klopp's side to extra time.

Standard Sport understands that negotiations over Mari were protracted, with Arsenal struggling to agree a deal for a player who initially flew to London with Edu last week.

However, Arsenal eventually offered to put down a larger amount of money up-front to make him Mikel Arteta's first signing, while Flamengo signed Leo Pereira from Club Athletico Paranaense as a replacement.

Mari has spoken about the details of the move to Arsenal Player, saying: "When I spoke to my agent, it was a big thing that Arsenal were interested in me.

"This is one of the best clubs in the world, so I'm absolutely delighted to be joining. I'm really looking forward to playing in this jersey and helping my team.

"The conversations started a couple of weeks ago. Arsenal told us that they were interested. We'd just won everything with Flamengo – I won the league and the Copa Libertadores and was also named best centre-back in America, so that will have helped Arsenal notice me.

"It's a great achievement for me to come to Arsenal and it all happened in basically two weeks.

"I'm kind of used to [all the media attention the move has received] from Brazil, where the fans are really passionate about Flamengo.

"I'm used to a lot of media interest so I know what to expect when joining a big club like this one.

"It's a normal thing for me now."