Arsenal legend Ray Parlour has credited summer signing Lucas Torreira as being key to the team’s fine start to the season.
The midfielder, signed from Sampdoria in the off season, has been influential for Unai Emery’s side in recent months with a number of commanding displays.
And Parlour is clearly impressed with the Uruguayan: “I don’t think so, Torreira’s changed a lot of that,” he told the Daily Star when asked if Arsenal were still an unbalanced team. “I think in midfield, [Granit] Xhaka weren’t really a proper holding midfielder.
“I’ve seen the difference now, they’re a lot more hard to break down now than they was at the start of the season, because Torreira wasn’t playing. Gilberto Silva, he done a wonderful job in that unbeaten season. And them sort of guys, again you won’t see them a lot during the game, but he does a great job. So it looks a lot more balanced now with Torreira playing.”
OPINION
The impact that Torreira has had has been clear as day in recent weeks. He has made this Gunners team much harder to break down than the cavalier Arsene Wenger team of old. He is exactly what the team have needed for a long time, since Gilberto Silva really. Players like Alex Song and Francis Coquelin haven’t quite cut the mustard as a holding midfield player for Arsenal but Torreira certainly looks as if he can do the job in the middle of the park at the Emirates Stadium. Xhaka looks better with Torreira alongside him and the two of them are looking like a top class duo all of a sudden. Torreira isn’t the sole reason for Arsenal’s renaissance under Emery, of course, but he has been one of the team’s most important players this campaign – and certainly the finest of Emery’s summer signings. It will certainly be interesting to see how he develops over the rest of the season.