Reports: Fiorentina not redeeming Lucas Torreira

All season long, reports hinted that Fiorentina was more than happy with Lucas Torreira. After all, look at his performances for the Viola. He won three player of the month awards, was the club’s best midfielder, and seemed to gel in great with the squad. Just look at his reaction after winning the penalty against Juve yesterday: one of pure passion and triumph, that of a player who wanted to stay in Firenze and fight in the Conference League with the club.

Now, however, his time with Fiorentina is coming to an end after just one season. Gianluca di Marzio broke the news this morning that there was no agreement between Fiorentina and the player and he will be returning to Arsenal before likely being sold.

Shortly after, Torreira’s agent Paulo Bentancur went to fiorentinanews.com to explain the situation.

“We had agreed on an contract with Fiorentina for the coming seasons of 2.7 million net a year. Fiorentina, however, wanted to lower both the salary and the cost of the card. We couldn’t accept this and neither could Arsenal. Now Lucas has a contract with the Gunners until June 30, 2023 ″.

Now, it wouldn’t be fair to judge Fiorentina in this situation until we hear what Joe Barone and Daniele Pradè have to say. Supposedly, Pradè will speak later this week about the non-renewal.

Clearly, Bentancur is trying to get ahead of the situation this morning by telling his side of the story, and with how much we love the player it’s obvious which side the fans will take right now.

However, if what Bentancur says is true, this is a massive failure from Fiorentina’s front office. Torreira is a quality player who is available at a reasonable price, and most importantly wanted to be in Florence. Those types of players don’t grow on trees. Having to replace him this summer will be a tall order. And with the club’s rationale for selling Dušan to Juventus in January centered around having more funds available, fans won’t be happy if Fiorentina gives the appearance of pinching pennies at a time when we need to be splashing cash.

For now, I’m going to wait until we hear from Pradè and/or Barone to cast judgment. Still, this is not the story we wanted the morning after returning to Europe for the first time since 2017.