Why Lucas Torreira could now become a key player for Arsenal
Arsenal clearly want a rebuild, as things stand. The club has lost both its games since the Premier League re-started and even though some signs were promising against both Brighton and Manchester City, it has generally been very negative. The defence though, has been the most worrying thing for Mikel Arteta.
In a footballing sense, the defensive midfield position is perhaps the most important part of the pitch. If a team doesn’t have a reliable defensive midfielder, it will struggle defensive and in some cases, it will struggle in attack too. And that rings true for Arsenal, who haven’t had a reliable defensive midfielder for a good while now.
Links with Thomas Partey continue to be made. But amidst all that, Arsenal continue to forget that they have Lucas Torreira in the side too. Arsenal fans can look forward to some great betting odds about the club on online-betting Austria.
Back at Sampdoria, Torreira was the sole defensive midfielder under Marco Giampaolo in a possession-based system. In some ways, that is similar to what Arteta wants to do at Arsenal, even though the formation isn’t the same as Giampaolo’s 4-3-1-2.
In the two seasons that he played at Sampdoria under Giampaolo, Torreira won 2.9 tackles per 90 minutes. He was the player who held the defence together by sitting deep. With his passing abilities, he was the glue to their midfield and bound their attack together as well.
He arrived at Arsenal from Samp for a fee of £26 million and some signs were promising in the 2018-19 season. He had the passion that had been lacking from the side for many years. It was seen in Arsenal’s 4-2 win over Tottenham in a North London derby. He allowed Unai Emery’s team security in midfield and became that sole ball-winner.
The 2019-20 season saw him get used in many positions by a struggling Emery. There were rumours about the fact that he wanted a move back to Italy. While Emery is gone now, Torreira isn’t a regular at the Emirates.
Granit Xhaka sustained an injury against Manchester City, leaving Mateo Guendozi to start in the deepest midfield position. But the Frenchman isn’t quite that ball-winner who can take some burden off the backline. Dani Ceballos isn’t that sort of a player either. He is a flair player who likes to be involved further up the pitch.
What Torreira will bring to the team is midfield solidarity. He has that tiger-like grit in him that really attracted clubs back in the summer of 2018. He isn’t the sort of defensive midfielder who links defence to attack like Guendozi does with his passing, but he does the dirty stuff very well and makes sure that the defence doesn’t get exposed as much as it has been these days.
He knows how a possession-based system works too, as evident from how good he was during his time at Samp. The club currently needs someone to come in, take responsibility and make sure that they don’t have a soft underbelly. Torreira is the sort of player who can do just that.
