Arsenal: Lucas Torreira is good, but Sergio Busquets good?

Arsenal’s new signing Lucas Torreira has drawn many comparisons, but Sergio Busquets is a new one. Is this hype central or actually attainable?

If there is one thing I hate about any new signings, it’s the comparisons that they draw. Unfair comparisons literally destroyed Granit Xhaka‘s hopes of a fair shot to his start at Arsenal, and he won’t be the last.

The problem with comparisons is that no two players are the same. Everybody knows that, and they realize that when they make these comparisons. But once names are thrown around, the player is expected to be equal to whoever he is compared to or he has fallen short.

Lucas Torreira was already being compared to N’Golo Kante. In an attempt to burn fate, I said that this was setting the bar a bit low. Torreira can do more than that. He has the whole world ahead of him.

Not to be outdone by my audacious claim, Torreira’s old boss has come out with his own audacious claim – that the Uruguayan is the best tactically since Sergio Busquets.

He went into more depth than that, though:

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"He has always been strong in understanding those defensive tactical aspects and he is very mature tactically in terms of how he reads the game. He can cope with the gaps that emerge in midfield with great intelligence and he covers very well. He is the one who corrects the spaces and cuts out the passes between the lines in the defensive phase. After Sergio Busquets, he is tactically the strongest midfielder in Europe."

Given the in-depth response, I’m less inclined to believe this just a random, brass assertion that gets everyone’s hopes up. But that isn’t the only reason why. We all saw him at the World Cup. We saw him literally earn his spot in the starting XI.

We then saw him flatten Ronaldo, defend all the way to his own touchline, drive the ball forward and use that compact frame of his to enforce the law in the middle of the pitch.

In short, we saw everything that is currently on the list of things Torreira is supposedly good at. Because he is actually damn good at them.

So while Busquets is the cream of the crop – the ideal midfielder – Torreira can be too. Why can’t he be? If nothing else, it’s far too early to say that it’s impossible.