Lucas Torreira could leave Premier League strugglers Arsenal in January after falling out of favour under Unai Emery.
Even during the international break, Unai Emery cannot escape the angry mob storming across North London with pitchforks and homemade ‘Wenger In’ banners in hand.
From the omission of Mesut Ozil to Nicolas Pepe’s limited impact, a calamitous defence to the erosion of that patented free-flowing style which one made The Gunners everyone’s secret second club, Emery already appears to have lost the faith of even the most stable-minded Arsenal fanatic during a dismal start to the season.
In the grand scheme of things, his use of Lucas Torreira is hardly the biggest problem facing the Premier League’s perennial underachievers right now. But, with Emery’s attempts to transform the ankle-biting enforcer into a box-to-box playmaker going down like a lead balloon, this is just another rod which with to beat the former Sevilla and PSG boss.
The £26 million man looked like the sort of tenacious, ball-winning midfielder Arsenal were crying out for when he moved to the Emirates from Sampdoria last summer.
But, for some unknown reason, Emery feels Torreira would be better utilised higher up the pitch – or not at all, in fact.
Speaking to Calciomercato, Torreira’s agent Pablo Bentancur admitted that his client no longer feels ‘at ease’ at Arsenal with a number of clubs in Spain taking a keen interest.
If that didn’t annoy the Gunners fanatics enough, Torreira’s impressive performance in Uruguay’s 2-2 draw with Argentina – in his trademark deep-lying role no less – has only given the ‘Emery out’ brigade even more ammunition.
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