Barcelona star wants Arsenal scouting target to join club

FOTO:HALID KAYACAN

Barcelona star Arda Turan has revealed that he would like Besiktas midfield maestro Oguzhan Ozyakup to join the reigning La Liga champions.

Turan spoke to Turkish sports program Beyaz Futbol and praised the former Arsenal academy player describing him as an incredible talent.

The 29-year-old revealed that he feels Ozyakup still has aspects of his game he needs to develop but that if he were to pick one Turkish player to join him at Barcelona it would be the Besiktas man.

“I would love to bring Ozyakup here to Barcelona, I admire his playing style and while he still has areas he can work on but as a talent he is brilliant and a top level player,” Turan said.

Barcelona have yet to show any interest in Ozyakup but his former club Arsenal have. A source close to the player revealed to Turkish-football.com that the Gunners have been keeping tabs on the midfielder but have yet to make a formal approach.

Ozyakup is no stranger to European football. The 24-year-old was born in the Netherlands and captained the Dutch national team at U21 level before switching allegiances to Turkey.

The creative midfielder was snapped up by Arsenal as a youth before joining Besiktas in 2012 in pursuit of regular first team football.

The Turkish international went onto establish himself as a key player at Besiktas playing an instrumental role in winning the league title last season scoring 10 times and providing eight assists in all competitions.