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Arsenal boss confirms when new signing will make debut

By mac14 on August 2, 2018

Unai Emery has confirmed new signing Lucas Torreira will make his Arsenal debut during our friendly with Lazio on Saturday evening.

Torreira completed a £27m move to Arsenal from Sampdoria last month but his arrival at the club was delayed after he was given an extended break following his exploits at the World Cup with Uruguay.

The 22-year-old helped his country past the group stages in Russia and enjoyed a well earned holiday in South America with his family before linking up with his new team mates on Monday.

Torreira wasn’t fit enough to make his debut during our International Champions Cup clash with Chelsea on Wednesday night and he didn’t even travel with the squad to Dublin.

Instead, the midfielder stayed at London Colney to work on his fitness and along with the likes of Granit Xhaka, Stephan Lichtsteiner and Nacho Monreal – who also returned to pre-season training earlier this week.

Speaking after our penalty shoot-out win following the 1-1 draw with Chelsea last night, Emery confirmed that Torreira is in-line to make his debut against Lazio this weekend.

Emery is quoted as saying by the Metro:

‘At the moment I am very happy with the players who are with here with us. There are more coming; Nacho Monreal, Lucas [Torreira] and [Granit] Xhaka will start to play some minutes on Saturday.’

Fans are eager to see Torreira in action as he’s the first ‘proper’ defensive midfielder we’ve had for a long time and our back four certainly needs some protection having conceded 51 Premier League goals last season.