Where is Arda Turan? The guarded silence of the Barcelona player

Turkish international Arda Turan has not been able to find his place at Barcelona. It was impossible to do it with Luis Enrique on the bench, with an over-populated midfielder and an irreplaceable trident in attack. But he's not been able to convince Ernesto Valverde, either, and he has not featured in La Liga this season. 

Turan seems to be stuck at a dead end. The club put him on a silver platter last summer, destination Turkey, but the player turned it down, preferring to stay where he is, despite the fact he knew he wouldn't be given many chances. 

Since then, the former Atletico player has lived in ostracism. Turan has been in the squad just once, for the first league game of the season against Real Betis, and he's not played a single minutes, picking up suspicious injuries as he goes. With training sessions largely behind closed doors, it's hard to work out how hard he's working.

Barça paid 34 million euros for the attacking midfielder in 2015. Maybe, in today's inflated market, that doesn't sound like much, but at the time it was a lot. He became the seventh biggest signing in the club's history. Turan has been the victim of the high expectations which 'Ardaturanism' brought to Camp Nou.  

SELF-IMPOSED SILENCE

The player's opted to keep a low profile. Despite being active on social media usually, Turan's kept his silence. 

His Instagram has been inactive since Oct. 5, when he shared a video of a group of children celebrating his 100th game with Turkey. A day later, his country said goodbye to the World Cup as they were beaten 3-0 by Iceland. And he was made responsible by sections of the press in his homeland for the loss. 

Turan broke his silence four days ago, on Twitter. However, it wasn't to talk about football, but to make a joke (which no one understood) in response to a tweet posted by goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen. His reaction provoked anger from some of his Turkish followers. 

Left! 😉 @mterstegen1 https://t.co/bxTLuyJ3LT

— Arda Turan (@ArdaTuran) 12 de octubre de 2017