Hannover 96 officially announced the move on their Twitter account on Wednesday morning. With varying reports over whether the transfer was permanent or temporary, they cleared up that it’s just a loan move, for now. There are rumours of an option-to-buy at the end of the season though, at around €3m.

Arsenal have now also confirmed the deal on their website.

It’s a third loan in three years for the player, after he spent time with Stuttgart for the last two seasons. Hannover’s club president hinted at the deal earlier this week:

“We will loan him for a year,” Martin Kind said. “The sporting hierarchy have positive judgements over him.”

Asano had a pretty terrible time with Stuttgart this year. After an encouraging first season, where he generally played well without scoring many goals, things just got worse in his second campaign.

The 23-year-old made 18 appearances for the first team in 2017/18, the last of which came in December 2017. He scored one goal and provided one assist in total, and only made the squad four times in 2018.

Dropping down to the Stuttgart second team, he scored once and assisted once in two appearances. It wasn’t enough to get him another first team opportunity though.

Given Asano’s performances at club level and the fact he isn’t getting international call ups anymore, there’s no way he’d get a work permit for Arsenal just yet. Even if he is in Japan’s preliminary World Cup squad. A loan is the only option, other than selling, so at least they’ve found a club that wants him.

To check out our evaluation of all Arsenal’s loanees this season, click ‘Next’