Trossard Leaves Arsenal for Besiktas in £15.3m Deal

Leandro Trossard has completed a move from Arsenal to Besiktas, the Turkish club confirming a three-year deal worth 18m euros, around £15.3m, paid in six equal instalments with a further one-year option attached. The Belgium forward travelled to Istanbul for a medical on Tuesday once the fee was agreed, bringing an end to a spell at the Emirates that started with a January 2023 arrival from Brighton and finished with a Premier League title in the bag.

What Arsenal are losing

Trossard was under contract until 2027, so this was not a club offloading a problem. He joined for £21m plus add-ons and leaves having scored 36 goals and set up a further 34 in 174 appearances for the Gunners, numbers that make him one of the better value signings of Mikel Arteta's rebuild. He was not a bit-part player in the title-winning season either, starting 21 league games and lining up in the Champions League final defeat to Paris St-Germain. Arsenal have not explained the sale, but a forward who starts a European final and still leaves for £15.3m at 31 does not read like a man pushed out for lack of form. The more likely explanation is his age catching up with his market value, nothing more sinister than that.

A World Cup he can be proud of

Trossard's stock, if anything, rose over the summer rather than fell. He started all six of Belgium's games at this year's World Cup, scored twice, and helped his country reach the quarter-finals before Spain ended the run. Besiktas are not signing a player in decline. They are signing a player who has just started six World Cup matches and scored twice, at a price a Premier League title winner rarely commands.

Arsenal move straight on to Tzolis

Trossard's departure has an immediate knock-on effect. BBC Sport reports Arsenal are now set to accelerate their pursuit of Club Brugge's Christos Tzolis, interest first reported back in June and now moving toward an actual offer, with the Belgian club anticipating one to land. Tzolis, a 24-year-old Greece international, could be available for around £30m, and sporting director Andrea Berta has been working the deal personally after his assistant Maurizio Micheli watched the forward play for Greece against Sweden last month. It is a smaller, cheaper piece of business than Arsenal's other targets this summer, but it directly replaces the goal contribution Trossard leaves behind.

The bigger picture: Alvarez, Rogers and Barcola

Tzolis is separate from Arsenal's real ambition up front. The club retain a long-term interest in Atletico Madrid's Julian Alvarez, their priority target, though Barcelona and Real Madrid are also credited with interest, which makes that one anything but straightforward. Morgan Rogers is described as Arsenal's preferred option for a versatile forward, with a move for the Aston Villa player expected to pick up once his World Cup involvement with England ends, though Villa reportedly value him at £130m. Paris St-Germain's Bradley Barcola is viewed as the fallback if a Rogers deal cannot be reached. Micheli has also been scouting further down the pipeline, watching Georgia Under-21 international Andria Bartishvili in a Champions League qualifier last Wednesday, a sign Arsenal are working multiple levels of the market at once.

Verdict: a sensible exit, and a busy summer ahead

There is no controversy in this one. Trossard got his medals, Arsenal got a fair fee for a 31-year-old entering the final year of his deal, and Besiktas get a forward who just proved at a World Cup that he still has real quality left. The more interesting story is what comes next. Tzolis is the tidy, affordable answer to the immediate gap in the squad, while Alvarez, Rogers and Barcola represent three very different versions of Arsenal's bigger summer plan. Trossard's exit clears a wage and a squad number. It does not, on its own, tell you which of those three names Arsenal actually end up with.

Sources: BBC Sport.