Arsenal Keeping Tracks on Celtic Defender Virgil van Dijk

Arsenal are reportedly eyeing a January move for Celtic defender Virgil van Dijk after failing with a late move on transfer deadline day.

According to the Daily Mail, the Gunners are still interested in the Dutch defender despite their failure to land him this summer and will have scouts keeping track of his progress with a view to a move during the January transfer window.

Arsene Wenger was desperately trying to sign a defender on deadline day and it is claimed that he had late moves rejected for Aston Villa's Ron Vlaar and Matija Nastasic of Manchester City.

The north London club are very light in the defensive department following the Frenchman's failure to find a replacement for Thomas Vermaelen, who departed for Barcelona earlier in the summer.

Arsenal currently have just Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker as their first choice pairing and 19-year-old Calum Chambers as a backup. The latter among the three is also set to deputies as a backup for right-back Mathieu Debuchy, leaving the Gunners highly vulnerable in case of an injury to one of the first-choice options.

Van Dijk, 23, who signed for Celtic last summer, has been impressive for the Scottish champions and even though he was left out of the World Cup squad by Louis van Gaal, his performances have earned him a call up to the national squad under Guus Hiddink for the Euro 2016 qualifiers.

Manchester United and England defender Rio Ferdinand has sung praises of the Dutch defender and believes that his time to move to a bigger club will surely arrive soon.

"He is cool, calm and collected in defence. Virgil always appears relaxed and it looks as if there is another gear in there," Ferdinand said, as quoted by the Daily Mail.

"His time for moving will definitely come at some point but look, he's in the Holland squad this week while playing for Celtic, so it can't be too bad for him," the former England international added.