Arsenal: Lucas Torreira impact undeniable

Lucas Torreira has worked his way into the Arsenal line-up and is now a regular starter for Unai Emery. His impact on the team is utterly undeniable.

Lucas Torreira was signed for £26 million in the summer transfer window. He was largely heralded as a solution to Arsenal’s lack of balance that had crippled the structure and security of the team. There had been many attempts to solve the defensive problem, from Francis Coquelin to the infamous return of Mathieu Flamini. Few, if any, had been successful.

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But these proposed answers all had key flaws. They may have been adapted players, not naturally suited to the defensive nature of the position, like Mikel Arteta; they may have been limited in other aspects of the game that made their presence difficult to deal with, like Alex Song or Coquelin. Or they may simply have not been good enough — Granit Xhaka springs to mind.

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Torreira, though, seemed different. First, he had international experience and was proven on the European level in Serie A. Second, he had played as an out-and-out defensive midfielder for several seasons, and done so successfully. Thirdly, he was only 22 and offered a long-term option, not just a short-term, quick-fix, stop-gap solution. These reasons, among others, had plenty extremely excited about the impact that he would have on the Arsenal team.

I was chief among the Torreira proprietors. He was very much the type of player that I had been calling for this club to sign for many years. And finally, they did. In my eyes, he was the perfect signing. So I was overjoyed when I witnessed his, and the team’s, best performance in a 5-1 win over Fulham on Sunday afternoon.

It may have been the clinical finishing of Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang that grabbed the headlines afterwards, but, for me, this was the coming out party for Torreira. The impact he had on the team throughout the 90 minutes was a glimpse at the impact that he can have on this team for many years to come.

In fact, it’s not just the win over Fulham that has illustrated Torreira’s game-breaking influence. Arsenal have played 442 minutes of football this season without Torreira. They have scored 10 goals and conceded nine in that time. In contrast, they have played 548 minutes of football this season with Torreira. They have scored 20 goals, double of what they have without Torreira, and conceded just three, a third of what they have without Torreira.

These are very simple stats, but such is their disparity, they should be listened to. Using team goals scored and goals conceded is not usually a good way to accurately analyse the quality of an individual player. But in this case, they do provide a nice picture of the dimension-altering impact that Torreira has on this team. It is completely and utterly undeniable. He turns this team upside down.

Is he the solution to the defensive midfield conundrum? Well, we simply don’t know yet. There hasn’t been enough to time to accurately asses his performances. But, for now, he’s doing everything that could be asked of him. Arsenal may have finally found an answer to that age old problem, and it comes in the size of a 5-foot-6 Uruguayan.