According to the Mirror, Mikel Arteta’s treatment of Lucas Torreira has been slammed on the latest edition of the Kevin Campbell Show on AFTV.
The former Arsenal forward questioned Arteta’s handling of the combative midfielder in the side’s draw against Burnley.
Arteta decided to leave Torreira out of the starting lineup, only to bring him on for the second-half to replace the injured Bukayo Saka.
Campbell’s co-host, Lee Judges, hinted that Torreira being left out of the starting eleven may have made sense given the aerial threat of Sean Dyche’s side.
Here’s what Campbell has to say on Arteta’s handling of Torreira:
“Where was Torreira? If you believe in your players, play them.”
“There’s enough big lumps at the back to be able to go and head the ball. There’s only one ball, go and head it.”
“That’s what you’ve got centre-halves for, that’s what the likes of Granit Xhaka is in the team for, to be able to go up and challenge aerially, everyone’s not going to be big, we know that.”
“Look, for me, these moves don’t make sense, to leave him out and put him on the bench and then bring him on in the second half. Why?”
“There’s going to be more pressure in the second half with them putting balls in the box.”
It seems as though Arteta ordinarily sees Torreira as a key player.
The former Arsenal captain brought the Uruguayan back into the fold after he was used sparingly in the latter stages of Unai Emery’s doomed reign.
The 23-year-old has made 29 appearances for us across all competitions this season, starting on 20 of these outings.
Is the use of Torreira really one of the main things we should be targeting after a lacklustre display against the Clarets or did our faults lie elsewhere?
Arteta’s start has been encouraging and perhaps we should give the Spaniard some credit for lifting the atmosphere at the club rather than analysing every one of his decisions.
