Arsenal: We’ve waited for Lucas Torreira, and now it’s time

Arsenal brought in Lucas Torreira to be a solution and after a very short time, it looks like he may actually be ready to be that solution now.

Arsenal fans were most excited about Lucas Torreira. By a long shot. The young Uruguayan was everything we wanted in a midfielder and given his exploits in the World Cup, it was a thrill to imagine that same talent in our midfield.

The first three matches showed a lot of acclimation issues. His basis as a player, that ability to swarm the midfield and win then ball back, was there. But everything else looked to be in slow motion as he got settled into this new adventure.

I don’t want to get in the habit of basing claims off of one performance, but I think that, after seeing what he was able to do against Cardiff City, it’s time to slip him in in favor of Matteo Guendouzi.

For starters, it stems from Guendouzi not doing as well lately. He’s still trying to find his foundation too, and that’s fine, that’s why we have these midfield options ready to go.

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But it’s more than just Guendouzi not being as effective, and needing Torreira to come on for him by the end eventually.

This comes down to Torreira showing everything against Cardiff that we wanted to see from him. Yes, the defense was there, as it had been, but he showed an ability to push play forward too, which is that big test for a deep-lying midfielder.

He was a huge part of the game, touching the ball over 30 times in his half hour of play. In those thirty touches, he completed every single one of his passes and he even created a perfect assist for Alexandre Lacazette to finish off with his rocket into the top corner.

Not to mention what we saw Granit Xhaka become when Torreira became his partner against West Ham. Xhaka looked like a new man, and that theme continued against Cardiff City.

It’s a compound issue. Guendouzi hasn’t been that great in his past two games and that’s exactly why it’s time to give Torreira his shot. He’s improving each week and it’s the perfect opportunity to reward him for it and potentially round out the team much better than it is.

And then there is the matter of defensive cover.  Needless to say we’d love to see more of that.