Arsenal: Lucas Torreira perfect philosophy builder for Unai Emery

Arsenal are seemingly nearing a deal for defensive midfielder Lucas Torreira. Sampdoria’s scrappy anchorman is the perfect philosophy builder for Unai Emery.

The need for a defensive midfielder has been a great one. Arsenal, perhaps ever since the phasing out of Gilberto Silva over a decade ago, have never had a commanding, authoritative anchorman to provide balance and bite to a midfield that has always been chocked full with technical, creative but smaller, defensively-light players.

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Finding a true defensive midfielder is, for me and many others, the biggest priority of this summer transfer window. While there is a mire of positions that require investment, if I could choose just one, it would be defensive midfield. And it seems as if the Gunners have found their solution to the problem.

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Over the past few days, there has been intense speculation that Arsenal are ready to activate the £22 million release clause of Sampdoria midfielder, Lucas Torreira. The Uruguayan, who is currently preparing for the World Cup, has been integral to the Sampdoria midfield for the past two years, making 71 Serie A appearances across the two years.

I do not know that much about the 22-year-old. I have only seen limited clips of him playing for Sampdoria and was not all that familiar with him, other than his name, before these links first surfaced a week or two ago.

So I found this nugget from Mattias Karen’s piece in ESPN on the midfielder extremely interesting:

"“Sampdoria have been one of the hardest-pressing teams in Serie A for the last few years, with the Uruguayan a key part of those tactics. He has the speed to close down attackers quickly and is excellent at instigating counter-attacks once the ball has been won back.”"

Unai Emery has spoken of his intention to implement an intense pressing scheme that attempts to suffocate the opposition of time and space on the ball, restricting quality service and winning the ball back high up the pitch. Torreira, then, seems like the perfect philosophy builder.

Having played with that same strategy at Sampdoria and possessing the athletic and game-reading traits that are required to fulfil the responsibilities of the defensive midfield position in such a scheme, traits that Granit Xhaka most notably does not have, it makes perfect sense for Torreira to enter in and become one of the cornerstone pieces on which Emery can establish his era.

For Emery, this Arsenal squad is very much a blank slate. It is young, talented, but unstructured, lacking the detailed instruction that modern football increasingly requires. He could very quickly and forcefully implement his style through the introduction of a player like Torreira.

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Obviously, there is still a long way to go for this deal to be completed. Much of the reporting at this point is little more than rumour and conjecture. But Torreira ticks many boxes, both for me and Emery. He is the type of player that is worth fighting for.