Omar Rekik has fuelled speculation that his transfer to Arsenal is imminent by sharing that he flew into London on his Instagram story.
According to the MailOnline, Arsenal agreed to sign the 18-year-old for a fee of £900,000 in the summer, in a deal tied to outcast Matteo Guendouzi’s loan deal to Hertha Berlin.
Football.London reported last month that the deal ultimately couldn’t be processed in time, so it will become official in January instead.
Rekik has moved around quite a lot for someone so young, with the talent mostly following older brother Karim to whichever club he’s been at either permanently or on loan.
Omar has been on the books at Feyenoord, Manchester City, PSV and Marseille, before joining the Berlin outfit in the summer of 2017.
The ace’s Instagram story showed a picture of the ace on a runway in London, with the talent clearly snapping from a window seat on a flight.
??|#AFC
Hertha Berlin centre-back Omar Rekik has just flown into London to finalise his transfer to Arsenal. He was meant to join Arsenal over the summer, but last minute complications prevented a deal from happening. (omarrekik on Instagram) ? pic.twitter.com/7XWJKL84gB
— afcSource™ (@afcSource) December 17, 2020
Football.London add that the centre-back has been promised the chance to train with the first-team regularly by academy manager and ex-star Per Mertesacker, with a loan back to the Bundesliga also mooted as a potential option, with the deal set to be announced, we’re sure to learn of the plan soon.
Rekik has been left to feature for Hertha’s reserve side in the Fourth Tier this season, making eight appearances, the last of which coming on Halloween on the final day of October.
Rekik made the Bundesliga side’s bench on three occasions last term, signalling that he was close to a breakthrough, which seemingly hasn’t come likely due to his impeding move to the Gunners.
The ace represented Holland at Under-18s level before switching his international allegiance to Tunisia.
Omar will find it hard to break into Arsenal’s first-team anytime soon due to the plethora of centre-back options that Mikel Arteta has to call on.
The Gunners have Gabriel Magalhaes, David Luiz, Rob Holding, Shkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers, Pablo Mari, Sokratis and also Kieran Tierney – who’s been deployed here when the side side have utilised a formation involving three centre-backs.