According to The Metro, Arsenal have fended off interest from Manchester United and are now on the cusp of signing Villarreal’s Gabriel Paulista.

The North London side have been in discussions for some time over a move for the young Brazilian however recent reports claimed that Manchester United were planning on hijacking the apparent bid.

It appears that Arsenal have fended off this late interest and are now in pole position to land the centre back. They are so close to landing him, in fact, that Spanish source Marca are claiming the deal is just hours away from being completed.

In a press conference yesterday, Wenger spoke of the possible deal to bring the centre back to the Emirates, however he stated that both clubs were still in talks over a possible transfer however, a deal did not sound to be done by any means:

‘The talks are progressing quite well. I don’t think there’s a need to say much more. We are talking at the moment – can we find an agreement? I don’t know.”

‘We are slowly progressing. There’s a chance, [and I rate it] at 50/50. We are ready to pay the price for a good player. If we think it’s the right price, we will pay”

According to these latest reports, it seems as though these talks have been very successful and a deal will be done fairly soon.

Arsenal shareholder, Darren Epstein, went to twitter to state that in a Diamond Club Q&A session, the Gunners boss told the audience that the deal to bring Paulista to Arsenal was practically there:

“Arsene doing Diamond Club Q&A now has just said that Paulista deal virtually done, then tried to backtrack after giving too much away”

Wenger giving too much away about a transfer is quite surprising to me but it is definitely good news to hear that the Paulista deal is more or less there. Expect an announcement from Arsenal on the deal sooner rather than later.