New Arsenal signing Sokratis Papastathopoulos admits two former Borussia Dortmund teammates helped convince him about a move to London.

Sokratis says Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang spent plenty of time convincing him to move to the Emirates Stadium.

"I spoke to them a lot of times," he told Arsenal's official website.

"They said to me the best things about this club, that it is one big family and of course they also called me not every day but a lot of times telling me to come here.

"Yes it's a little bit (strange) but it's also very beautiful that I've come to one team but I also have two players who I was together with for a lot of years. I know them both very well and I'm very happy."

He follows Stephan Lichtsteiner and Bernd Leno in moving to Arsenal ahead of the new campaign.

"I think that a defender first has to defend, to protect the goal, and then after if he can help in front a little bit for the game, then it's good," he added.

"But first of all, he has to defend. I'm a normal defender who likes to defend.

"I like that my team doesn't concede goals and I like the zero in the defence of course. I will do everything to help achieve these goals."