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Thoughts on Lucas Torreira’s Botched Fiorentina Move
When Arsenal signed Lucas Torreira from Sampdoria in 2018, he was an instant hit at Unai Emery’s lineup, as he gave the Gunners something they had missed since the days of Alexandre Song. Despite his clear deficiency emanating from his low center of gravity, his doggedness, work rate and tenacity endeared Torreira to the Arsenal faithful. In his first season at Arsenal, Torreira was an ever-present in the starting lineup, playing as much as 50 games, which included 34 in the Premier League.
The manager that brought Torreira to the club, Unai Emery, was sacked in November 2019, and Torreira’s cause wasn’t helped when he suffered that career-threatening ankle injury against Portsmouth in the FA Cup. In stark contrast to the stellar campaign he had in his maiden season with the club, his second season was challenging from a footballing standpoint, as he featured sparingly, much to his despair, which ultimately led to a move out of the club to Atletico Madrid in a season-long loan move.
Torreira managed a handful of games with Atletico and even earned some adulation from his gaffer, Diego Simeone, but after winning the domestic title with the Madrid outfit, he returned to Arsenal and agitated for a move elsewhere, as he was no longer happy at North London. Fiorentina declared their interest in signing the Uruguayan maverick, and a loan move was secured to Florence with an option to sign him permanently in the summer for £13m.
With 31 league appearances, three Player of the Month awards and such a good time enjoying his football with La Viola, we all expected the club to pay the obliged £13m fee expected to sign Lucas Torreira on a permanent basis. However, it has been reported that Fiorentina looked to take advantage of Torreira’s zeal to remain at the club, offering Arsenal a meager €7m bid, as well as a reduced contract to the player, much to the disgust of his agent,
“The basic problem is that Lucas was earning a higher salary at Arsenal than he did in Florence. When we agreed on the €1.5m loan [fee] with Arsenal last summer, I had the English club agree that Fiorentina would not pay that money if Lucas played at least 25 games.
“With this option we have set the right of redemption at €15m, payable in six instalments of €2.5m by 2025.
“We had agreed on a salary with Fiorentina for the coming seasons of €2.7m net per year.
“Fiorentina, however, now want to lower both the salary and the cost of the transfer fee. We couldn’t accept this and even Arsenal didn’t accept it either. Now Lucas has a contract with the Gunners until June 30, 2023.”
Torreira has already gone to social media to bid his farewell to the club, and you could tell that he was very disappointed both clubs couldn’t reach an agreement to sign him on a permanent basis. With his imminent return to the club this summer, Torreira’s eyes will be keenly focused on the exit door, and Sports Mole reports that Arsenal has offered him to Lazio in the club’s bid to cash in on the midfielder with only 12 months left on his contract.
I am in the opinion that Lucas Torreira should be sold as soon as possible as a player of his ability could be able to fetch Arsenal about £13m – £15m. With the club aiming to sign Lucas Tielemans from Leicester, Torreira would go further down the pecking order behind the likes of Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka, Mo Elneny and even Sambi Lokonga, so the best option would be to secure a sale.
I really enjoyed watching him play for us in his first season at the club, but unfortunately, his Arsenal career took a wrong turn and he’s pretty much a forgotten memory. I am hopeful we can secure a deal for him, as it would be beneficial for the player and the club.
Sayonara.
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Thoughts on Arsenal’s Potential Departures to Italy
Football, first and foremost, is a business with dealings in the transfer window playing a major role in the club’s finances. Arsenal is no different as the club swiftly swooped for Chelsea’s experienced maverick, Willian, on a free transfer before signing the highly-coveted center back, Gabriel Magalhaes, and securing a successive loan spell for midfield maestro, Dani Ceballos.
There are some departures that have been expected with the Italian Serie A being the expected destination.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan
With some additions, it only makes sense to expect some departures and the goodbye wagon started rolling with the club confirming the departure of Henrikh Mkhitaryan to AS Roma by mutual consent.
The decision to swap the Armenian attacking midfielder with Alexis Sanchez remains one of the most puzzling deals in football history, bearing in mind that Arsenal rejected a lucrative offer from Manchester City to sign the Chilean forward. Mkhitaryan joined the squad with a fat pay check and was quite inconsistent and underwhelming for a player of his calibre.
Things went sour and he joined AS Roma on loan where he managed to pick up some decent form to the point they offered Arsenal 10 million euros for his services and the Gunners rejected that as well – only to allow him leave for free a few months later. Good business indeed. The only positive I can think of from Mkhitaryan leaving, besides watching him of course, is the wages that have been freed up, which will be offered to those more deserving, like a certain Gabonese talismanic forward.
Lucas Torreira
Switching from permanent to potential departures, it seems like our love affair with the diminutive Uruguayan defensive midfielder, Lucas Torreira, is coming to an end. He came to the club and offered us something we had missed for a while – that dogged, swashbuckling, hard tackling, combative style we craved and we certainly loved it, as he missed only four Premier League games from 38 in his debut season.
His second season with us didn’t have the same zest as expected and he even lost his place in the team to a younger Matteo Guendouzi under Unai Emery and Dani Ceballos under Mikel Arteta. This led to him voicing his thoughts about not playing regularly and giving green lights to his potential suitors about his availability. It is believed that Italian Serie A outfit, Fiorentina, have declared their interest in signing Torreira in some sort of loan with mandatory option of buying kind of deal.
I am certain that Torreira will not pass on an opportunity to return to the country he started his football career, having played with Pescara and Sampdoria before joining Arsenal in 2018. In as much as I would love Torreira to stay, I understand his sentiments if he wants to leave for regular playing time, especially with the fact that he featured sparingly went football returned in June 2020.
Sokratis Papastathopoulos
Finally, we visit the situation of Sokratis Papastathopoulos who has clearly fallen out of favor with the manager. Despite the fact that Calum Chambers has been injured for a lengthy period and there were fitness concerns with Rob Holding, Arteta still preferred to feature full backs like Kieran Tierney and Sead Kolasinac as center back options with Sokratis watching from the bench.
The fact that he has also entered the final months of his contract with no hopes of renewing makes him a prime target to be axed this summer and his wishes might come through with Napoli declaring their interest in acquiring his services.
With their key asset in midfield, Allan, already departing to Everton and star defender, Kalilou Koulibaly, a long-term target for Manchester City, Napoli will want to bolster their defensive options and I am elated with the fact that the potential exists for Sokratis to be sold to them, even though it will certainly be for cheaps.
Sayonara.
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Lucas Torreira: Update on his Ankle Injury
Lucas Torreira suffered a nasty ankle injury in the 16th minute of Arsenal’s 2-0 win over Portsmouth at Fratton Park on a cold Monday night. The Arsenal youngsters took the plaudits for their good performance that was enough to seal a quarterfinal berth with head coach, Mikel Arteta, lauding their efforts but it was not a good night for Torreira, that had to be stretched off the pitch to receive medical attention for what was really a nasty challenge from Portsmouth defender, James Bolton.
Torreira was seen wearing an ankle brace and had to use clutches to navigate his way around to join the team leaving Portsmouth back to London. This leaves Arteta with only Dani Ceballos, Granit Xhaka, Joe Willock and Matteo Guendouzi as his only central midfield options, which is not ideal if you ask me. No other player in the side offers what Lucas Torreira gives this team and I touched on this sometime in January, when he suffered an injury in the draw with Crystal Palace.
Lucas Torreira wearing an ankle brace
Torreira has done well to allays some fears on whether he will be out for a while, when he spoke to the media about his injury,
“I wanted to tap it and grabbed my ankle on the outside. It twisted the ankle but I can move it”
Arteta, on the other hand, isn’t sure of the severity of the injury and will be waiting for the Arsenal medical team to provide a favorable update for him. What we know for sure is that Torreira will not be available for the crucial weekend fixture against West Ham and the midweek clash against Manchester City might come too soon for him.
In his absence, Ceballos will get an extended run in the side and we will be hoping he can forge a good understanding with Xhaka in the middle of the park. For a player that was close to leaving the club in January, Ceballos is playing on a different level and looks committed to the cause as Arteta hopes to seek qualification to Europe from the Premier League following that disaster that happened last week Thursday against Olympiakos.
Arsenal would be hoping to have Torreira available for selection as soon as possible because he remains a vital cog in the Arteta midfield machine.
Sayonara.
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