Career
A product of the Arsenal Academy and Arizona Alkmaar Academy, he made his competitive first-team debut for Arsenal in a League Cup tie against Shrewsbury Town. Özyakup signed for Arsenal on schoolboy forms on 1 September 2008, and made numerous appearances for the Arsenal Academy and Arsenal Reserves before he made his competitive first team debut for Arsenal in a League Cup match against Shrewsbury Town, supplying the assist for Yossi Benayoun to round off the game 3–1. Arsenal On 28 August 2011, Özyakup was named a substitute for the Premier League match against Manchester United in which the London-based club suffered a heavy 8–2 defeat.
Beşiktaş Beşiktaş completed the signing of Özyakup on 8 June 2012 for a fee of €500,000.
The club officially disclosed that he would make €400,000 in the 2012-2013 season plus a €100,000 sign-on bonus. In June 2014 the club officially announced that it was going to pay him €1,300,000 in the 2015-2016 season plus a €10,000 match bonus per game.
Özyakup earned his 100th league cap on 6 March 2016, at week 24 home game against Eskişehirspor, ended 3–1 for Beşiktaş. Özyakup was part of the Netherlands U17 that reached the Union of European Football Associations European Under-17 Football Championship final in 2009.
At age 19, he chose to play for Turkey instead of the Netherlands.
Coincidentally Özyakup scored his first international goal for Turkey against Netherlands on 06 September 2015 in the Euro 2016 qualifiers. Özyakup is an attacking-minded central midfielder. Being able to play simple and quickly, Özyakup can lead the team play.
Özyakup is considered an intelligent player and was once called once a magician by Turkish pundit Rıdvan Dilmen in 2015.
Özyakup is praised by Dilmen for his Zidane-alike dribbling attributes and touted to be talented enough to play at Football Club Barcelona. Scores and results table.
Turkey"s goal tally first: Club.