While most of the attention regarding the (lack of) activity of Arsenal in the transfer market has to do with Luis Suarez, according to certain sourced in England it seems the club might be very close to signing Matthias Ginter of Freiburg.
Both the Sun & Mirror are reporting this approach. Actually, the first link between the sides was made two months ago, when Arsenal made an enquiry about the 19 year old player, who can play as a centre back and a defensive midfielder. At the time he was valued at around €5 million, but it seems Arsenal will sign him for £6.1 million.
Despite their desire to find a top-name striker so they can have their marquee signing of the summer, bringing in some help to their defense and defensive midfield might be even more important. There’s no actual defensive midfielder on the team, and as friendly matches against more serious teams than the ones they encountered in Asia suggest, there’s still an issue of concern regarding their defense.
Ginter has been with Freiburg since 2005 and has already appeared with them once this season in an official match, with the DFB Pokal already underway. He played in 23 league matches last season, most of them as a centre back, although he had a run near the end of the season, quite successfully, as a defensive midfielder.
He scored one goal, and also caught some attention from his performance with the U-21 German side, which was heavily undermanned considering the amount of young talent Low called up to the senior national side. He played in all three matches for Germany in Israel, bringing in his best performance against Russia, when he was moved from the middle of the defense to the defensive midfield.
While Freiburg are a club that could use the money, Arsenal need to start speeding up their recruiting process, if this rumor has some substance to it, before they enter another August and season without making any substantial signings to upgrade their chances of doing more than usual.