Trossard’s Title Season Became His Ticket to Besiktas

Leandro Trossard joined Besiktas from Arsenal on 15 July 2026 for a guaranteed €18 million (£15.3 million). He was 31, one year from free agency, and fresh from a Premier League title.

The Belgian winger signed three years in Istanbul with a one-year option. Arsenal got a fee for a player who would have walked next summer. Besiktas got a champion who had just started a Champions League final. Both outcomes sat inside the same trophy.

Arsenal Took €18m and Closed the File

Transfer reporter Fabrizio Romano wrote on 13 July that Trossard had approved the move, with Arsenal due €18 million plus €2 million in add-ons. The north London club had already accepted those terms. The next morning Arsenal said a fee was agreed and that Leo, 31, could travel for his medical.

Besiktas put the same day on record in Turkey, telling the market it had opened talks on the public filing with the player and with The Arsenal Football Club Public Limited Company. On 15 July Arsenal posted that the transfer was done. A signing ceremony followed at Tupras Stadium on 16 July.

The guaranteed money arrives in six equal instalments over three years, €3 million at a time. That is a clean exit for a wide forward who joined from Brighton in January 2023 and was heading into the last season of a deal that ran to 2027. In the same window Arsenal recast the midfield with Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle while they moved a title winger on.

THE BESIKTAS CONTRACT

Atletico Madrid and Juventus had been around the player in June and then stepped back. Vincenzo Italiano, the new Besiktas head coach, wanted a wide attacker who could play his way. Trossard was available because Arsenal, for the first time in 22 years, could sell from a position of having already won the league.

He Joined in January and Left a Champion

Trossard’s Arsenal account is not a cameo. The club’s own farewell listed 174 games, 36 goals and 34 assists after that January 2023 arrival. He wore the No. 19 shirt, started 21 Premier League matches in 2025-26, and was on the pitch in the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain.

He also started all six of Belgium’s World Cup games last summer and scored twice, before Spain ended the run in the quarter-finals. The move waited until that tournament was over. Then it went through in a week.

Everyone at Arsenal would like to thank Leo for his valued contribution to the club and wish him all the best for his future.

Arsenal Football Club, official statement, 15 July 2026

The goodbye on the English side matched that tone. When Romano posted the here-we-go, the loud replies were thank-you notes, not an inquest. One line that stuck was simple: he came and he won it. There was no revolt to cover, because Trossard had not been pushing to leave.

The West Ham Winner Arsenal Still Cite

Arsenal’s farewell did not linger on volume. It picked one night. The “decisive winner” in a 1-0 victory away to West Ham United, on 10 May 2026, was the passage the club called pivotal in a first title since 2004.

That is the player they sold. Not the loudest name in the attack, and not a 20-goal striker. A finisher for matches that had stopped being open. Across 2025-26 he played 50 games in all competitions and scored eight times, with 6 goals and 6 assists in 31 Premier League appearances.

TROSSARD IN 2025-26

• Premier League: 31 games, 21 starts, 6 goals, 6 assists.
• All competitions: 50 games, 8 goals, including the West Ham winner in the run-in.
• Europe: started the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain.
• World Cup: 6 starts, 2 goals, Belgium out in the quarter-finals to Spain.

Sell that profile in January and it looks like panic. Sell it in July, after the medal is in the cabinet, and it looks like a club deciding the insurance policy can go. The irony is that the policy had just paid out.

Why Besiktas Bought a Premier League Champion

Besiktas did not buy a bargain because it was bored. Italiano’s side needed a senior wide player who could receive under pressure and still pick a pass. Trossard had just done that for a champion and for Belgium. Istanbul paid guaranteed money, and stretched the contract past his 34th birthday, to get him in the building before the Super Lig window shut on 4 September.

The club also added Dusan Vlahovic after the striker left Juventus, and it made Orkun Kokcu’s loan from Benfica permanent. Trossard was the Premier League piece of that rebuild, a title winner dropped into a squad that wanted to look like it could live with Galatasaray and Fenerbahce again.

He said at his signing that he had come to fight for trophies with his new teammates, and that the support from Besiktas fans had reached him from everywhere. That is not the language of a man treating Turkey as a payday layover. It is the language of a player who knew Arsenal’s next attack would be younger, and who took the minutes on offer.

A Younger Winger Walked Into His Role

Arsenal did not leave the minutes empty. Within days of the medical, the club accelerated a record signing of Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge. The Greece winger is 24. He is quicker in a straight line than Trossard and seven years younger, which is the entire point of the swap if the finishing holds up in England.

The rest of the forward line moved too. Arsenal’s own summer list shows Gabriel Jesus left for Barcelona on a permanent deal. Reiss Nelson was released. Gabriel Martinelli stayed. The “uncertainty” around Jesus that hung over June was resolved by an exit, not a new contract.

ARSENAL’S SUMMER ATTACK RESET

• Out, Trossard: Besiktas, guaranteed €18 million, plus add-ons.
• Out, Jesus: Barcelona, permanent, fee undisclosed on Arsenal’s list.
• In, Tzolis: Club Brugge, the direct wide replacement, five-year deal.
• Still there: Martinelli, with the left side now shared with a 24-year-old rather than a 31-year-old.

The early league table has not punished them. Arsenal won their first three Premier League matches of 2026-27, including 2-1 against Chelsea on 6 September. That does not prove Tzolis is Trossard. It does show Arteta was not bluffing when he decided the title squad could lose its clever spare part.

Four Super Lig Starts, Then a Derby

Trossard’s first competitive minutes in black and white came off the bench in Europe, with Italiano still easing him in after the World Cup. His Super Lig debut on 16 August was a 1-0 home win over Eyupspor, and he started it. An away loss at Alanyaspor followed. Trossard was slapped in an off-the-ball clash, no card was given, and he said the decision “should clearly have been changed.”

TROSSARD’S FIRST MONTH IN TURKEY

1. 16 August 2026: Starts the Super Lig opener, Besiktas 1-0 Eyupspor.
2. 23 August 2026: Plays in a 1-0 loss at Alanyaspor and is caught in a slap that draws no punishment.
3. 31 August 2026: 84 minutes in a 6-2 home win over Corum FK.
4. 5 September 2026: Full 90 in a 2-1 derby win at Fenerbahce, one assist, one shot off the frame.

The derby was the first night that looked like the Arsenal version. Kokcu found him. Trossard slipped Ridvan Yilmaz through on the left of the box, and the full-back finished for 1-1 before half-time. Vlahovic won it in the 73rd minute. Trossard smashed the bar late. Four Super Lig games, zero goals, one assist, and the assist came in the fixture Istanbul actually watches.

After the match he posted two words in two languages and an eagle.

https://x.com/LTrossard/status/2096350507090530315

The clip of that pass spread because it was the same habit Arsenal supporters already knew: outside of the foot, no backlift, a teammate running onto it. The Super Lig start had been quiet on the scoresheet. The derby was the reminder that the quiet part was the point of buying him.

Besiktas play Erzurumspor on 11 September, which will be Trossard’s fifth league game if he starts. He has not scored for his new club yet. Italiano will keep using him for the same job Arteta used him for in May: a tight scoreline and a pass that has to be right.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much did Arsenal pay Brighton for Trossard in 2023?

Arsenal signed Trossard from Brighton & Hove Albion in January 2023 for £21 million plus add-ons, so the guaranteed €18 million sale to Besiktas is a cut on the original outlay before those add-ons are counted.

When does Trossard’s Besiktas contract expire?

Transfermarkt lists the deal through 30 June 2029, which matches a three-year contract signed in July 2026, and the clubs also agreed a further one-year option on top of that term.

What shirt number does Trossard wear at Besiktas?

He has taken No. 19 for Besiktas, the same number he wore throughout his Arsenal spell after joining from Brighton.

What was Trossard’s first trophy as an Arsenal player?

His first full season in north London opened with the 2023 Community Shield, when he scored a stoppage-time equaliser against Manchester City at Wembley before Arsenal won 4-1 on penalties.