Report: Beşiktaş buy Oğuzhan Özyakup from Arsenal

According to Jamie Sanderson, Turkish club Beşiktaş have confirmed the purchase from Arsenal of midfielder Oğuzhan Özyakup, after he passed a medical examination. Arsenal will receive a €700,000 fee and a guaranteed 20% sell-on fee should Beşiktaş move him again at a later time.

Özyakup, or Ozzy as I plan to call him for the remainder of this post, because Özyakup is hard to type, joined Arsenal from Dutch club AZ Alkmaar in September of 2008, and went on to make two first team appearances, both in this year's Carling Cup. He also almost came on in the 3-0 "win" against AC Milan this spring, but didn't. I was disappointed.

Personally, I'm not really sure why we're selling Ozzy. He seemed to be highly touted around the reserve league, as a regular starter and good performer. He sounded like the kind of player who would probably get a loan next season to get top-flight experience, then maybe some time with the Arsenal first team to see whether he could cut it. Instead, it looks like that decision's been made already, and not in his favor. It's possible that the club have simply decided that he isn't good enough to be useful, or that he's made some kind of contract demand that's seen as unreasonable (though that seems unlikely as he just signed a contract recently), or that another player's going to be brought in who will block him out even farther from the first team than he already is. Without being in on the decision, it's impossible to know.

The reality is this, though - €700,000 is a decent haul for a young, almost completely unproven player, and the 20% sell-on clause could prove a masterstroke if he ends up to be any good. Still, though, I would have liked to see him as an Arsenal player for at least another year, whether on loan or not. He never seemed enough of a talent to get too worked up over, though, so I won't.

If this were Serge Gnabry, though...