When it happened, Lucas Torreira’s loan move to Atletico Madrid seemed like a good fit for a defensively-minded player who could slot easily enough into Diego Simeone’s structure.
However, all has not been well for the Uruguayan in Spain, and in the last couple of days there have been reports that the La Liga side are looking to cut short the deal and send him back to Arsenal.
With interest from Italy, as there was in the summer, he could potentially go back out loan – especially as Arsenal’s already bloated squad has no more room for non-homegrown players.
However, while he seemed to acknowledge there was something going on by referencing Technical Director Edu, Mikel Arteta played his cards close to his chest.
Asked about the reports of Atleti’s discontent, the Arsenal boss said, “We have been dealing with that situation, but again, when the market opens and we have the possibility to bring players in and get players out, whatever we have to do, we will discuss it.
“I cannot comment on that [cutting the loan deal short].”
Lucas has started just twice in La Liga since his move, and in one of those games was taken off at half-time. He was forced to miss a couple of matches because of a positive Covid-19 diagnosis, but it’s safe to say things haven’t quite gone as he’d have liked.
What happens in January will be interesting, and if Arsenal are looking to raise funds for additions to the squad, he could well find a permanent move on the cards.
Lucas and Partey in the midfield would be the dream. What an engine that would be and a great wall of defense for our back 3/4/5. Ship that Swiss tool out of the club on January and find a way to keep Lucas over Granit.
Would absolutely love it if that happened. Always like Lucas, felt he was unlucky last season having just returned from a bad injury. A base of Lucas and Partey with a no 10 in from of them would be great for us i feel
Elneny is better than Torreira. I hope his loan gets cut short so we can SELL him for 20m in January and use that money for a creative midfielder. As well as Selling Xhaka 20-25m get xhaka out. Sokratis out, as well as Mustafi is possible but I think Mustafi wants to run down his contract. Cancel Willians contract in the summer let him go for free and go back to Arsene Wenger policy of NEVER giving any player over the age of 30 a 3yr contract. We criticized him for this policy who knew AW was right all along.… Read more »
Selling Xhaka for 20-25 million? That’s a crazy asking price for someone so bad.
We might need to stuff 20 million in his pockets in order to offload him..
Xhaka is valued at £25m on Transfermarkt
Pretty sure they’d ask for more than £20m in order to take Xhaka
I’d actually love Douzi and Partey. Douzi is killing it in Berlin. All because he told some brighton twat that broke our Goalie that they earned peanuts. All the while fake tough-guy Xhaka gets defended for his throat grab and Willian fucks off-without leave for a holiday to UAE midseason. Only at Arsenal.
So why was Torreira sent on loan even with Guendouzi freeing a spot? The guy wasn’t good enough.
Um, Torreira is a defensive midfielder, on loan to club where we signed their defensive midfielder…
As much as I want to see Xhaka’s back, I disagree with you about Lucas and Partey partnership. Lucas cannot be a CM he is at best a CDM, we have also not seen the best of Partey. From the looks of it, I would like Partey to play in Xhaka’s position and position a top technical CM like Ramsey/Santi alongside to pull the strings.
Say we play a 4231, could have Lucas and Partey as that 2, sitting behind a 10 and the 2 wingers and striker. I think it would be a great base for us to springboard off. I know Lucas isn’t a playmaker, so that’s where you get Partey to get the attack/counter attack going as his distribution is far better.
Rambo back on load would be ideal.
Home grown player and if Juv pay some of wages it’s very do able.
Guaranteed goals and creation from midfield.
We can bite the bullet and return Ramsey even on loan,we need a creative midfielder who can open up teams for our strikers to score.
Not keeping Ramsey was criminal. I still can’t get over it
He’s on 400k a week at Juve. Why would he come back ?
This was Simone’s plan when he loaned Torreira from us. We pulled 1 off Simone as with his departure, we offloaded his wages and squad registration space for partey.
Feel that we should have kept him for the fight and heart he have though.
Honestly think Lucas is head and shoulders above all other senior midfielders in the team right now, bar Partey. Sad Arteta is clueless and can’t seem to see beyond his nose. A new manager has to come in and objectively reassess the whole squad and ship out all the dross. Till then, fingers crossed.
Imahine if we brought him back to play the no. 10 position. Omg.
i don’t think lucas is the answer. i love his attitude and he has talent but it doesn’t seem to me he has the legs to cover the ground needed in the PL. he is better suited to italian or maybe spanish football where he can play a stricter role and have less ground to cover. our biggest issue in midfield is lack of mobility. if i had to choose between guendouzi and torreira i would chose matteo every time.
I totally agree on your assessment of Torreira. I’ve been saying it for a good while about the midfield: Not Enough Legs. Even my phone auto-completes the third word in that phrase. However I disagree with your assessment of Guendouzi. He is of questionable character, as are many of the lunatics in this asylum that are trying to take control. I think the club needs to move on a good number of them. The club should – as Gunnerblog suggested – bite the bullet, treat this window as a summer window as much as possible and have as many of… Read more »
Yeah. Also his lack of playing time at Atlethi is telling…
All you are talking about is crap, the team is well enough to win the common games, arsenal has all it takes to contest for the title even, the coach is the problem and the entire top players in the team, In my opinion, I think arsenal is selling games to betting companies. There is no way you can convince me that arsenal with the likes of Tien, partey, Gabriel, David Luiz, Beralin, xhaka, Auba, Laca, Pepe, Cedric, Leno, and many others can easily loose a game like that of Burnley when well knowing how other title competitors have performed.… Read more »
Yikes – not working out well for this guy. Do they want to try Xhaka instead?
Sad, really sad. What happened to us that on all fronts we’re cursed?
After we sold Xhaka we can stay till summer
Is it possible to drop Xhaka and bring in Torreira or did that ship sail before the start of the season?
Apparently it’s just not possible to drop Xhaka so the rest is mute.
Moot
I am willing to bet my bottom dollar that Xhaka will be in starring 11 post his suspension. That’s just how the ball rolls now at Arsenal.
He was always decent for us, don’t understand why he was the first on the list to be sold by the new managers. Maybe he is a bit of a wanker behind the scenes?
Didn’t we hear that he was finding it difficult to settle in London…off the field?
Besides, he had become a bit-part player last season.
Cause he’s the only one in demand.
in demand, thats a fair point, and yes i remember now he wasn’t settled.
He had some solid early performances, and here and there had a good showing, but to be honest I thought he fizzled out a bit for us. He certainly doesn’t add speed to our deep midfield, and it seemed toward the ‘end’ that he was bypassed a bit easily.
there were a lot of stories about him being unhappy in london but i just don’t think he works in PL. the game is too quick for him. i lost count of number of times i saw him chasing back to cover a break and just moving backwards. we need legs in midfield. we have it with partey and elneny. i’d love to see AMN given an extended run. we are in danger of losing him and he has a much bigger upside than lucas imho.
Sell Xhaka (or give him away, whatever goes faster), get Torreira in. At least he’s a bit smarter and has some speed. Sure, he has some faults. He’ll go off on weird trips up the pitch just as Xhaka, but perhaps with more recovery speed than a turning Canal ferry…
Remember how people used to moan about Elney and look how he is now not the greatest player but gives 100% every game. Lets give Lucas a chance to prove hes worth under Arteta
We need to play a back 3 and unleash Tierney and Saka as wing backs
Unpopular opinion but auba on the left with laca in the centre and Pepe/Nelson on the right in a front 3
And El neny and Ceballos in the middle
Or saka can play on the right in front 3 and AMN can play at wing back
See where you coming from, buts lets put Martinelli in stead of Laca once hes fully fit
Didn’t Simeone want Lucas to partner Partey in midfield? Crazy notion, but we could do that – acknowledging we’d have to lose a non homegrown player in the process
XHAKA!
I didn’t want to say it.
In fairness, there’s a couple of candidates.
Lets get rid of Xhaka then👍👍
I hope Edus dealing is a swap for Xhaka to AM. However I doubt they’ll offload Xhaka as long he’s the only left footed CM we have at the moment.
Dont forget his right handed
I remember Lucas scoring against Tottenham…Aah yes, it is the hope that kills you.
Arsenal football club always says no money to spend but couldn’t manage once they have well,
All Arsenal need is a good management like Liverpool
People who can dictate hungry players.
Arsenal need a strong creative midfielder because for now defenders are better than before, lacking an creative ability is now missing,
Mikel Arteta need a suitable system for his players to win matches not ball possession because win is all that counts.
It’s only when you’re scoring goals that can build up a team mind and appetite
Sorry , a big NO. We can see the type of players we have acquired , those who do not slot in any big clubs and our fans think we should welcome back such players . Lucas is nothing more than average , not discarding him will be piling more average into an already average team . Just sell him
As coach you to dictate your players whom is fit and ready for a particular game, I believe Arsenal a club has all players it’s need as a winning team but it’s the manager work to fix them in,
Lucas and Guadiz can partner with Thomas better than Xaka, the secret is who is ready and willing to win a game with your system that’s only thing I like from Mourinho style.
Agree with you to one extent that it is on the onus of the gaffer to get the best out of the players on hand. And as bad as we are, we should still be higher up with this set of players. NO excuses. ONe thing to come up with fancy formations and who should play with who and another though to get the players to execute on plan. That is the part that was a worry with Arteta I voiced before his appointment and has predictably come to haunt us. No amount of get this player or that player… Read more »
We have become career destroyers
Gnabry saw the writing on the wall and took off. Giroud is having a golden summer in his career. Guendouzi finding footing with better man management coaxing out the better part of him away from his faults. Its a question of man managemnet , using the strengths of your asset and negating their weaknesses. Arteta is not terrible at some of it but he seems to be a bit wet behind the ears man managing the squad with over dogmatic approach on Ozil, GUendouzi (not to mention Sokratis and Torreira unconvinced) sending a bad message to rest of the squad.… Read more »
Surely we can’t be wanting guendouzi back he offered nothing but trouble ..biggest little trouble maker since Gallas who was the most poisonous player ever to wear the shirt I will be making my mind up on Arteta 5pm tomorrow night if he picks Wenger and Chelsea has beens over our youth players coming through he can turn the lights out I’m not saying the youth is the cure but confident fans will have his back for at least the season rather than witnessing the same old rubbish every week We thought and you say your ruthless Mikel !! Time… Read more »
With caveat this smacks of a bit of desperation. Torreira was half the player many imagine him to be. In truth we are so low on options its worth thnking about but don’t expect suddenly to have some sort of solution to our problems with him. He has himself been culpable of mistakes and his shortcoming (literally) is his lack of height particularly when we defend set pieces and Arteta insist on using him to mark someone twice the height. Edu frankly out of his depth along with Arteta. There’s a whole lot of hail Mary going on. IMO Arteta… Read more »
At the beginning of the Millennium, Arsenal was known for their creative, slick, attack-minded football while the rest of the league played boring long ball football that was physical and amounted to a slugfest. We played with an attacking mid in a 4231. Now we have changed roles. Our attack consists of nothing but crosses and we don’t use an attacking mid anymore. Whereas the rest of the league is more creative and attack-minded. What has happened? Why?
He had a purple patch when we bought him but he’s too small and slow for the Premier League. He either gets bullied off the ball or smashed up and he’s slow across the ground. He should be sold, we need money and he can be decent in another league. The loan move hasn’t done him any favours and he’s the one who insisted to go there, hopefully we can find a buyer in January.
We could do with Lucas Torreira back cant we bring him back and get rid of Xhaka
Arteta please just leave the club you are destroying us .
Torreira wants to play football, shame there’s not more in our squad like him.
So another fuck up.
Edu out – don’t rate him at all.
who will be in the first team?
arterta: i cannot disclosed
what will you do?
arteta: i cannot disclosed
will be you going to the loo later?
arteta: i cannot disclosed
Arteta got the wrong notion he was good towards the end of last season. He didn’t realize that the goals of Aubameyang and the insanity of Emi Martinez between the sticks were the reason behind our apparent success.
Niw he’s sold Emi and Aubameyang’s goals have gone on sabbatical, the team is now reflecting his gross lack of experience and limited knowledge.
When you watch the whole team play now, you would see total lack of connitment and discipline in the team. Any new player/s won’t make a difference.
Arsenal is just a dead team .Any team meeting arsenal now is confident to win
Well if mikel doesnt solve the midfield problem then he better register and start in midfield for us. And if edu cant solve the issue we register him too. And if we still cant solve the mustafi kolasinac story i expect per to come back in as well.
All you are talking about is crap, the team is well enough to win the common games, arsenal has all it takes to contest for the title even, the coach is the problem and the entire top players in the team, In my opinion, I think arsenal is selling games to betting companies. There is no way you can convince me that arsenal with the likes of Tien, partey, Gabriel, David Luiz, Beralin, xhaka, Auba, Laca, Pepe, Cedric, Leno, and many others can easily loose a game like that of Burnley when well knowing how other title competitors have performed.… Read more »