Arsenal: How to turn Lucas Torreira failure into a success

Arsenal are supposedly lining up a sale of Lucas Torreira just over a year since his arrival, and that sounds like a failure. But there’s one way to save it.

For many Arsenal fans, Lucas Torreira was the first sign that Unai Emery understood what he was doing and what the club needed. They needed that wrecker, that N’Golo Kante type that would wreck opposing counter-attacks and send play skewing in the right direction.

It’s been a rough go ever since. It hasn’t been all off the pitch drama, either. Sure, there was talk that he was unsettled last summer, and rumors linked him to AC Milan, but he did his best to rubbish the rumors and press on with his life at the Emirates, but Unai Emery had other plans, and didn’t feature him prominently.

When he did, he used the Uruguayan out of position in a more advanced role that didn’t play to his strengths.

Not just that, on a personal note, I grew tired of our “bruiser” being constantly on the ground. Now granted, he made the most of being on the ground sometimes, like trying to tackle with his head, but for me, it grew tiresome.

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Now, it’s looking like the club may pull the plug on what was once one of Emery’s most celebrated ideas after 18-24 months of a failed experiment. It hasn’t been great, and it’s all shaping up to be exactly that—a failure. And a failure on multiple levels. Coaching, playing, settling in… all of it. Just not a good situation overall.

Last summer, the rumors that were tying Torreira to an exit indicated that we would receive a higher fee than we paid for him. At the time, we obviously didn’t want to let him go because the tantalizing potential that was there.

Now, though? It feels like the only way to salvage any semblance of success is to sell him on for a higher fee than we paid. Make some money on Torreira and no one can ever call it a failure. A failure would seem to indicate a step back, but making money, despite what some may say, is never a step back. Even if the potential for so much more was there.

The rumors are now tying him to a move to Napoli, which would indicate that he just feels far more comfortable in the Serie A style than he does in the Premier League. Rather find that out now than five years down the road.