Arsenal and Lucas Torreira: Thank God for the ‘something strange’

According to his father, Lucas Torreira nearly signed for Napoli in the summer and only joined Arsenal because ‘something strange happened’. Well, thank God that it did.

As soon as Arsenal were linked with an ankle-snapping, ground-covering, tough-tackling central midfielder, I was immediately in love. Now, nearly a year into his time in north London, I am even more enamoured with Lucas Torreira.

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Even before I went back and watched some of the Sampdoria games that he played in, so that I could get a feel for what kind of player he was having never seen him kick a football before, I was already extremely intrigued simply by the description that he was attributed by plenty of writers and analysts far smarter than myself. As soon as I watched him, my hopes were realised.

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Torreira was and is exactly the type of player that Arsenal have needed for over a decade. Not since the days of Gilberto Silva have they had an industrious, disciplined, attack-breaking defensive midfielder to anchor the team on. And now, finally, they had one.

But it could have all been very different. Speaking to Radio Marte this week, Torreira’s father revealed that his son very nearly joined Napoli in the summer instead of making the move to the Emirates:

"“It’s true, Lucas was very close to Napoli. There were negotiations with Napoli, but something strange happened, and you know in the transfer market things can change from one moment to the next. Negotiations are long and complicated processes, so it can happen than they don’t go the way we expected. There was this opportunity to go to England and Lucas took it, so I have to say he is happy at Arsenal.”"

I have absolutely no idea what went down in the summer. The details of transfer negotiations are very rarely made public and I am sure that there is plenty that goes on behind closed doors, in murky corridors, that us mere fans and writers will never be allowed to catch even a glimpse of.

But, quite frankly, I also don’t really care. As long as the ‘something strange’ that Torreira’s father alludes to is not illegal or immoral and does not clas with the values of Arsenal football club, then I am not overly concerned with how they got the transfer completed. The only thing that matters is that it was completed and that the team is now of great benefit as a result.

Torreira has enjoyed a remarkable first season at the club, even if his performances have tailed off slightly since the turn of the year. He has been everything advertised and more, the exact midfielder that Unai Emery required to build his team around. And at 22, for £26 million? That is the bargain of the century.

So we should all be thanking our lucky stars for the ‘something strange’. Because without that, it seems as though Arsenal would not have landed what could be their anchoring midfielder for the next decade. Football is a funny old business sometimes.