Arsenal Vs Everton: Lucas Torreira selection telling

Lucas Torreira has slipped out of Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal plans in recent weeks. His selection or not against Everton on Sunday will be telling for his long-term future at the club.

When Mikel Arteta took over as the new head coach at Arsenal, one of the immediate and most significant changes he made to the team was to restructure the central midfield, and it all centred around the use of Lucas Torreira.

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Because of his perceived weaknesses in possession, Unai Emery pushed Torreira higher up the pitch. He wanted a greater passer to anchor his midfield and believed that Torreira’s greater energy and intensity helped to implement a high press in advanced areas of the pitch. Predictably, those selection decisions did not work.

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Arteta came in and immediately changed the entire set-up. Mesut Ozil was reintroduced as an attacking midfielder, Granit Xhaka was pushed slightly to the left, and Torreira came into the side as the anchoring midfielder, the role he impressed so greatly in during his first season.

Torreira shone. His tenacity and defensive rattiness were critical to the structure of the team, his play with the ball was neat and tidy, if not spectacular, and he helped provide a neat balance to a team that was previously horribly misaligned under Emery.

But more recently, Torreira has slipped out of the starting XI once again. The Uruguayan’s last start came over a month ago. He has started on the bench or left out of the squad entirely for the past four matches, only one of which was missed due to illness or injury.

Last weekend, Dani Ceballos started in Torreira’s stead alongside Xhaka. The Spaniard does not have the defensive instincts of Torreira, but his range of passing, creative distribution, and controlling playmaking ability from deep is far superior. Arteta explained this selection because of Newcastle’s tendency to implement a low block. He knew he needed creativity in his midfield.

But on Sunday, Arsenal face a much more dangerous Everton side. With two centre-forwards in a dangerous 4-4-2 shape, Carlo Ancelotti’s side will pose much more of an offensive threat than Newcastle did last week. Will Arteta change his team selection again, shifting to a more conservative approach to combat Everton’s greater threat?

Only two months into the job, Arteta is still determining which players can perform as he requires them to. This is true for Torreira. The ankle-snapping midfielder must prove that he can execute the role that Arteta requires of him, and his recent omissions perhaps suggest that he is failing to do so.

Everton’s trip to the Emirates would be the ideal match to insert Torreira into the central midfield. It seems like a natural selection. So if Arteta was to go a different way, which is plausible, it would be extremely telling indeed.