Italian sports director Marcello Donatelli has branded Arsenal new signing Lucas Torreira as the second best midfielder in Europe behind Sergio Busquets.
The Uruguayan joined the Gunners earlier this month for a reported fee of £26.4million, becoming Unai Emery’s fifth signing of the summer. He will add defensive quality to the Arsenal squad which already has Granit Xhaka who has had a disappointing campaign under Arsenal Wenger.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Donatelli said, “His technique, his determination, and his tactical intelligence always impressed me. He has always been strong in understanding those defensive tactical aspects and he is very mature tactically in terms of how he reads the game.”
“He can cope with the gaps that emerge in midfield with great intelligence and he covers very well. He is the one who corrects the spaces and cuts out the passes between the lines in the defensive phase. After Sergio Busquets, he is tactically the strongest midfielder in Europe,” he added.
Torreira is yet to link up with the rest of the squad as he was given a three week off after the World Cup tournament in Russia. Torreira spent the last two seasons at Sampdoria, making 71 appearances and scoring four goals and quickly became a fan favorite. After a summer of speculation, Torreira joined English club Arsenal on 10 July 2018 for an undisclosed fee, believed to be around £26.4m.
Upon the completion of the signing, head coach Unai Emery said “In Lucas Torreira, we have signed a young player who is a very bright talent in the game. A midfielder with great quality, I have enjoyed watching his performances for Sampdoria in the past two seasons, and we all saw him do very well for Uruguay in the World Cup. He is a young player already with good experience, but who wants to keep on growing.” Torreira was given the number 11 shirt, previously worn by Mesut Özil, who took the vacant number 10, following the departure of Jack Wilshere.
Upon signing for Arsenal in 2018, The Independent’s Jack Austin stated “Torreira is exactly the kind of no-nonsense midfielder the club have been craving”, adding that in Uruguay colours during the 2018 World Cup “he went about his job as the deep-lying pivot in the middle of the park with none of the fuss and all of the discipline of a player who has built a tidy reputation for himself in Serie A”, while assessing his chief weaknesses as a lack of height in aerial duels and little goal threat.