Miralem Pjanic hoping for permanent Barcelona exit this summer
By Tom Gott
Miralem Pjanic has confirmed that he hopes to turn his season-long loan stay with Besiktas into a permanent move.
A £59m signing from Juventus in part of the controversial deal that took Arthur in the opposite direction in 2020, Pjanic was shipped off to Besiktas on a season-long loan last summer after struggling for minutes at Barcelona.
There is no option to buy in Pjanic's loan contract, but he confessed to A Spor that he hopes the two teams will figure something out soon.
"I am very happy at Besiktas," he said. "I feel good. I adapted quickly. I joined a champion team. The league is not over yet, we will be better in the second half of the season.
"It is very nice to play for Besiktas in a wonderful country like Turkey. I came here for a year, but we'll see what happens at the end of the season.
"I have a great relationship with the fans. My family and I are happy to be here. I have a two-year contract with Barcelona, and since my contract here is just one year, I will have to return to Barcelona at the end of the season. It's too early to talk about what will happen in the future.
"That being said, considering what I've been through, if it's up to me, I would like to stay at Besiktas. I want to continue being a Besiktas player."
Pjanic has been a near-permanent starter for Besiktas this season, but it is not yet clear whether the Turkish giants would be willing to bring him back at the end of the campaign.
There are little doubts about Barcelona's willingness to get a deal done. The Camp Nou outfit are looking to offload all their high-earning fringe players, and when he returns in the summer, Pjanic will be one of the first to be pushed towards the exit door.