Arsenal vs Watford: Can Lucas Torreira can just do it all again?

Arsenal will win or lose the match against Watford in the midfield, so can Lucas Torreira just do everything he did against Napoli again?

Arsenal had a brilliant match against Napoli, and it was the perfect follow-up to such a dud against Everton, but the problem still remains of having to differentiate between home matches and away matches. What I really want to know is what would have happened against Everton if we had just had a midfield capable of establishing a presence.

Because we didn’t. That was where the match was lost and, keep in mind, it was only 1-0. Win the battle in the midfield, and that might have turned around quite easily. All of a sudden the attack would have had a foundation to build off and the defense would have been more reinforced.

And sure, hindsight is 20/20, but after seeing the drastic difference against a top quality club in Napoli, you can understand why this match against Watford feels like an even bigger proving ground than what we saw against Everton.

Because this time, we do have a full choice of midfielders, and while the defense is going to be hampered anew, with Sokratis serving his suspension, Lucas Torreira will be available in the midfield, along with Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka.

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But while I’ve already spent a ton of time talking about Xhaka, and while I’ve spent too much cumulative time speaking about Ramsey, it’s Lucas Torreira that has such a huge part to play against the Hornets as well, not least of all because of what he did against Napoli.

He played 76 strong minutes again Napoli – really strong – winning then ball, keeping hold of it, and doing all the things that were tragically lacking against Everton. Again, going on the road changes things, but if he can go into Watford with that sort of controlled tenacity, then I don’t see why a compliment of Xhaka and Ramsey can’t swing that key theatre of play into our favor and turn this crucial road match into three points.

All we need is for Torreira to do exactly what he did on Thursday. It sounds like a big ask, to replicate a superb outing, but this is crunch time, and we need it.

Watford have a notoriously strong midfield, so if we want to overturn their potential advantage, we are going to need our main guys, and we are going to need all of them.