New signing Konstantinos Mavropanos will stay at Arsenal for the remainder of the season, instead of going out on loan, says Arsene Wenger.

Mavropanos signed for the club during the January transfer window. Wenger’s initial assessment of the Greek defender was that he wasn’t ready to play and would go on loan. He’s since performed a U-turn on that stance, however, and says he’ll stay until May.

“I personally want to keep him until May, to know him better, to assess his level,” Wenger said, as reported by Arsenal.com. “The first signs he has shown in training are so encouraging that I decided to keep him until May.”

Mavropanos was on the bench for the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg on Wednesday night. Given he’s making a large step-up in quality, it’d be surprising to see him in the first-team straight away.

Between Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal, Shkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers, Rob Holding and Per Mertesacker, it’s hard to see where or how he’ll get a game. A loan seemed to make sense on paper.

Still, it’s good news if he’s impressing Wenger in training already. He might not play much this season, but he’ll have a chance to settle in to his new environment.

Even with injuries, there shouldn’t be a need to throw him into the deep end, so he can integrate without extra pressure.