Arsenal and Lucas Torreira: Media at it once again

Cesc Fabregas has apparently extolled the virtues of Arsenal target Lucas Torreira. But, upon closer reading, he hasn’t really. The media is at it once more.

It is media circus time. In football, it’s always media circus time, but the transfer window seems to give the circus a few extra clowns. And Arsenal, being an easy target with a desperate fan base, are often at the heart of this circus, the gullible audience for which these tricks are posed as truth.

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The latest centres on Lucas Torreira, a Sampdoria midfielder who is seemingly set to complete a £26 million deal to the Emirates in the coming days. The Uruguayan came on in his country’s 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia in the World Cup on Wednesday.

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Naturally, the BBC wanted to give their opinion on his 30-minute cameo, aware of the baying interest from any Arsenal fans. And so they gave that mantle to Cesc Fabregas. Though, he hardly talked about Torreira.

To be completely transparent, this is what he said during his punditry appearance:

"“I think he’s [Bentacur] one of the positives of the tournament, individually, so far. He’s a young boy who signed for Juventus. He hasn’t played a lot but you can see that he has a lot of personality, likes to play, he’s not scared. And for a team like Uruguay that doesn’t have a lot of ‘ballers’ or possession – they need a player like him. They also have Torreira on the bench who I really like for Sampdoria and they break lines.”"

To be clear, the only part of those comments that pertain to Torreira is ‘they also have Torreira on the bench who I really like for Sampdoria’. That’s it. No one told the English press.

This is The Daily Star story on the matter, in which Fabregas ‘had his say on the defensive midfielder’. Before presenting the above quotes, Callum Vurley writes, ‘The Spanish midfielder, currently with Chelsea, singled out Torreira, as well as Juventus ace Rodrigo Bentacur, as stars of the future.’ It’s technically true, but is clearly attempting to dupe the reader into thinking that Fabregas’ analysis of Bentacur is actually of Torreira.

The Daily Express isn’t so sly. They outright lie. Charles Perrin pulls the following quote to give it added emphasis, ‘He hasn’t played a lot but you can see that he has a lot of personality, likes to play’. There is not one mention of Bentacur, who Fabregas is actually talking about, and they attempt to spin off what Fabregas says about the Juventus midfielder as a comment on Torreira.

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At best, this is a mistake and it’s poor reporting; at worst — and perhaps more realistically — this is an outright lie, an attempt to twist words to produce ‘engaging content’. This is indeed is the height of the media circus.