Arsenal already have an agreement in place to sign Omar Rekik in January, after trying to push a deal through over the summer.

Chris Wheatley of Football.London reports that Arsenal have agreed to sign Omar Rekik from Hertha Berlin in January. They tried to bring him in on summer deadline day, but couldn’t quite complete a move in time.

Per Mertesacker has reportedly assured the 18-year-old he’ll train with the Arsenal first-team regularly, though he’s primarily a youth signing for now. In fact, Arsenal are keen on the idea of loaning Rekik back to Hertha while he transitions to senior football.

Just as a quick clarification, the player we’re talking about here is Omar Rekik, not Karim Rekik. There was some confusion over the summer, with a lot of Arsenal fans believing the club were chasing the now-Sevilla centre-back – Omar’s 25-year-old brother.

This Rekik is currently playing for Hertha’s second team. He’s helped them to a couple of clean sheets in his last three games, and even has a goal and an assist in eight appearances this season. He also has four yellow cards in those eight games.

Rekik would represent the latest addition in Mertesacker’s youth recruitment drive, with Nikolaj Moller, Jonathan Dinzeyi, George Lewis, Tim Akinola, Salah-Eddine Oulad M’Hand and Joel Ideho joining the u23s.

They’ve balanced those additions with an aggressive loan policy, sending most of last season’s u23 squad out.

In theory, those on loan all develop well and increase in value or get closer to the first-team action at Arsenal, whilst those joining the u23s progress towards senior football themselves and keep the youth sides competitive. We’ll see how it works out in practice.