Arsenal is finally making good on its promise to overhaul the left flank. Leandro Trossard is headed to Istanbul.
According to Adam Leventhal and James McNicholas of The Athletic, Besiktas and Arsenal have agreed on a €20 million deal for the 31-year-old winger. The base fee is €18 million with another €2 million tied to performance add-ons. Arsenal turned down earlier offers from Saudi clubs and a loan proposal from a Premier League rival, holding out for a permanent sale. Besiktas came through.
Trossard leaves north London with a Premier League winner’s medal and a solid stat line from last season: eight goals and 11 assists. Not bad for a guy who was basically a deadline-day panic buy in January 2023.
How They Got Here
Everybody remembers the Mudryk saga, right? Arsenal spent the entire winter transfer window chasing Mykhailo Mudryk. They had personal terms agreed. They thought they had it locked up. Then Chelsea swooped in, paid Shakhtar Donetsk £88 million, and Arsenal was left standing at the altar with a few days left in the window and a gaping hole in the attack.
So they called Brighton about Trossard. Paid somewhere between £24 million and £27 million, which at the time felt like a lot for a 28-year-old who’d never quite been a star. But Trossard settled in quick. He scored goals, set up teammates, and never complained about being the third-choice winger behind Martinelli and Bukayo Saka. Meanwhile Mudryk is currently serving a four-year doping ban. Football’s weird like that.
Now Trossard is off to Turkey, and the club’s focus shifts entirely to what comes next on the left side. Martinelli’s future is still up in the air too. Arsenal has been linked with several wingers across Europe, and the money from this deal gives them a little more flexibility in a market where prices keep climbing.
As for Trossard, he’s reportedly still weighing Besiktas’s personal terms. The report from The Athletic doesn’t say whether he’s agreed to the move yet, just that the clubs have. So there’s a chance this drags out a bit longer. But the hard part is done. Arsenal got its fee, Besiktas got its winger, and somewhere in Istanbul a fan is probably editing a hype video set to heavy metal as we speak.
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