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Barcelona Hopeful of Offloading Out-of-Favour Midfielder in January Before Closing Seri Deal

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Barcelona midfielder Arda Turan must leave in the January transfer window for the Catalans to sign Nice midfielder Jean Seri, according to SPORT.

Turan's impressive performances while at Atletico Madrid earned him a five-year-deal to join Barcelona in 2015, but the former Turkish international was not able to turn out for the Blaugrana until the following January, however, due to a transfer ban Barcelona were under at the time.

Since then, Turan has struggled to find regular first-team football, competing with the mercurial talents of Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez for a place in the team. In fact, the 30-year-old started just 14 matches in La Liga last term.

Now, according to a report from Sport, Barcelona are willing to offload Turan in January in order to sign one of their transfer targets - Nice midfielder Jean-Michel Seri. 

The Barcelona board believe that Turan and his agent, Ahmed Bulut, will give into to the 'temptations' of a move to a Chinese Super League club. It is also said that Seri is more than willing to leave Nice for Barcelona.

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The report comes right after recent contradictory comments from Seri, who suggested that he does not plan on departing in January.

"I will not go in the winter transfer window, whoever comes in for me, that is clear," Seri told L'Equipe (h/t Marca). "I will be fine here until next June and there is no debate."

Barcelona have begun the 2017/18 campaign with four wins from four games, despite losing key player Neymar to rivals Paris Saint-Germain. Additionally, Ernesto Valverde's side have made reinforcements of their own - chief among them being the signing of now-former Borussia Dortmund forward Ousmane Dembele.