Gazzetta dello Sport According to, Arsenal are on the brink of signing Lucas Torreira after agreeing a five-year contract with the midfielder ahead of a £26.5m move from Sampdoria.

Unai Emery is looking to bring in a new defensive midfielder this summer and Torreira emerged as a top target with various reports over the past week claiming we’ve been in negotiations with Sampdoria over a deal.

Yesterday, the Daily Star cited reports from Italy as saying that Arsenal had agreed a £26.5m fee with the Serie A club – which is more than his £22m release clause as we paid a premium in order to pay the fee in installments.

Personal terms were all that stood in the way but it seems we’ve overcome that hurdle as Gazzetta dello Sport claims that Arsenal agreed a five-year contract with Torreira during talks with his agent on Tuesday afternoon.

and Borussia Dortmund to the Uruguayan international’s signature so Torreira looks set to become Emery’s second major signing of the summer following the arrival of Stephan Lichtsteiner from Juventus.

The 22-year-old is currently preparing for the World Cup finals after being named in the Uruguay squad and they play their opening game against Egypt on Friday afternoon so we’ll have to move fast to get this deal over the line.

Torreira is exactly the type of player we need. He’s a ‘proper’ defensive midfielder who protects the back four, makes countless interceptions and tackles, has a good passing range, works hard and has a ‘bite’ to his game that we’ve lacked recently.

I think he’ll be the perfect addition to our midfield so fingers crossed we get this deal wrapped up soon. Granit Xhaka isn’t a defensive midfielder as he’s been exposed far too often while Aaron Ramsey loves to get forward so Torreira will help get the best out of both of them.