Lucas Torreira, a Uruguay international born in 1996, joined Arsenal from Sampdoria in Serie A in the summer of 2018 and quickly occupied the main position in Arsenal's midfield, with both Unai Emery and the newly appointed Li Doudi regarded him as an indispensable core of the team.

Looking at his performance at the Emirates Stadium in the past two years, the outside world has rated him as one of the top 10 defensive midfielders in the Premier League, and he is the midfield gate that the Gunners have relied on the most in the Emery era.

However, after Lee Mudi took charge of the team and brought in Ndidi from Leicester City, Torreira's role changed, and the task in attack became heavier. In the 10 games he has played so far this season, the Uruguayan star has scored one goal and provided three assists, which is close to around 50 per cent of last season's total of 47 appearances.

What surprised the outside world even more was that Torreira also showed that he had the world's best passing skills, with only 80 errors in a total of 779 passes, and the success rate was infinitely close to 90%. On top of that total number of passes, there is still such a high success rate, and the position is still in the midfield, which has only been achieved by a handful of top superstars such as Tony Close in the previous five major leagues.

Arsenal were able to put in a historic start to the season, with Torreira playing a huge role in the tandem and versatility of the midfield, and while not as impressive as Ndidi, he was no less important to the team.

However, it seems that the outstanding performance in the first two and a half months on the passing organization side has made many people forget what level the player's real defensive ability is, and the evaluation given in the FM system is: 15 marking, 16 steals, 17 anticipation, and 16 defensive positions, except for the height (only 168 cm), strength and some bad fighting for headers, proper world-class defensive midfield values. Combined with 18 passes, 16 catches and skills, it would be controversial to say that Torreira is the most versatile midfielder at both ends of the pitch today.

After discovering United's intention to move Ndidi on a large scale, Li Mudi reacted immediately, asking the Uruguayan to cut down on the frequency of forward insertions and temporarily form a two-back defensive model. Although Torreira will be at a disadvantage in terms of speed ability, whether it is against Lingard or Rashford, his two wing-backs Bellerin and Kolasinac are good at this, and with their assistance, they can still control the opponent more effectively, avoiding the situation of Ndidi running left and right alone, and instantly cracking the insidious strategy of the home manager.

It's just that because it is an away game, the opponent's own strength is still very strong, and with the support of more than 60,000 fans on the scene, Li Mudi has not been arrogant enough to take the initiative to attack and suppress the home team, so in terms of controlling the ball, it is still Manchester United to occupy a certain advantage.

Seeing that his clever tricks did not have the desired effect at all, Mourinho had to let his players return to normal attacking tactics at the same time, keep an eye on the opponent's formation changes, and when he found an opportunity, he still had to increase the speed of passing the ball, hoping to get more opportunities to face the Arsenal back line.

Torreira dropped back more, although it had a good effect of protecting the defence, but it also made the visitors lack a very key point of contact when counterattacking, Mkhitaryan was almost completely strangled by Matic, and the two strikers Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette were barely able to run better through the speed advantage under the focus of Manchester United's defenders, but no one passed the ball to them in vain.

So in the first fifteen minutes or so, neither side was able to create a threatening attack, and the situation looked very balanced, but there was also a serious lack of highlights that made the audience's eyes shine, which somewhat did not meet everyone's previous expectations.

Since entering the world's attention in the early 90s, Manchester United's attack seems to have been known for its integrity, with few cases of establishing a single organisational core. Starting with one of the strongest midfield lines of all time made up of David Beckham, Roy Keane, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, the Reds' attack has been largely present on the pitch as a whole.

During this period, successive managers such as Lord Ferguson also brought in Peron, Shinji Kagawa, Mkhitaryan and other playmakers who had achieved success in other teams, but at Old Trafford they all showed serious symptoms of adaptation, and finally returned to the overall attacking tactical style.

The strength of this strategy is undeniable, but it is often at a loss in difficult situations due to the lack of a core who can turn the tide on his own at critical moments, and the team's long absence from important titles after the retirement of the old man is inextricably linked to this tactical style.

That situation finally took a turn for the worse in the summer of 2016, when Paul Pogba, then the world's number one midfielder and Manchester United's own Academy graduate, returned to Manchester in a record-breaking transfer fee for world football, giving all Red Devils fans a glimpse of a bright future for the team that will be immensely strong when a new core is established.

Unfortunately, under Mourinho's tactical thinking, the French midfielder, who had conquered almost the entire world at Juventus, seemed to be becoming less and less able to play. He has gone from being one of the world's top box-to-box superstars to an ordinary character who can't attack or defend, and the subtle passes and bursts of the back row are hard to see in the past, and people just find that Pogba's position on the field is constantly moving back, especially when facing strong opponents, almost becoming a midfielder, but this is really not the most suitable way of playing for the French.

Although Mu Niao is passionate about transforming players and putting them in new positions for the good of the team as a whole, there are not many examples of success, and there are many cases of failure. For example, if Gudjows should be played in midfield, the result is that the number of goals scored by the Icelandic striker has plummeted from 12 to 2; Mikel, who was once considered a talented midfielder, became a pure defensive engineer under Mourinho and eventually disappeared from the crowd; And the Brazilian winger Kenedy, who posted a number of insulting remarks on social media, was used as a left wing-back many times when he was in the second phase of Mu, but unfortunately the current Manchester United manager was sacked by the Blues soon after, otherwise the people of the Celestial Empire should be even happier.

Obviously, in the use of Pogba, Mourinho's approach is contrary to the general opinion of the outside world, and it is extremely unpopular. However, as Manchester United's opponents, Li Muddy and other Premier League managers are still happy to see this happen.

Today's core of the French national team still does not have much initiative in the offensive high-end, judging from the situation on the field, his ability is still there, but it seems that there is a lot of problems in personal attitude, and he does not use the space created by teammates back and forth to boldly press forward, resulting in Arsenal players not putting much effort into defending him.

However, the reason why Manchester United still maintains the status of the world's top giants after the retirement of Lord Ferguson is not only because the old foundation left by their ancestors is thick enough, but also because their strength has indeed been able to maintain a certain level. Even though it has been a little far from qualifying for the title in recent years, the fact that it has been able to qualify for the Champions League for three consecutive seasons still shows that this team still has a strong team heritage. When the number one star in the ball is not in good form (or the subjective desire to participate in the game is not strong), it is natural that there are others who step up and help the team solve the problem.

Andreas Pereira, born on New Year's Day 1995 in the Brazilian midfielder against Belgium, moved from PSV Eindhoven to Manchester United's academy at the age of 17, but in eight years he has rarely played for the first team and has always been loaned to other teams. Last season, with the departure of Juan Mata, the former talent, who is no longer young, finally ushered in a turnaround at the Red Devils and used his modest minutes to impress Mourinho with good performances and was able to secure a contract extension.

Pereira has been an important rotation in midfield this season following Herrera's injury, and is often given more organisational tasks by the manager due to his technical characteristics, making him one of the team's most pass-through players after a game.

Against arch-rivals Arsenal today, the Brazilian midfielder began to use his excellent passing awareness and skills to try to break the deadlock despite the team's overall tactical performance, and finally reaped some results. The imagination of 19 combined with the crosses of 14 and the passing ability of 17 give the player who is also good at dribbling (after all, Brazilian) more options when facing opposing defenders, making it far more difficult to mark than Rashford, who can only use speed to attack. After his deliberate frequent changes with his team-mates, the visitors' right wing-back Bellerin was also a headache even with Ndidi on his side.

In the 31st minute, Pereira sent a precise 45-degree diagonal pass with his left foot, which was almost as agile as the right foot of the main foot, and helped Lukaku get a header from four meters to the left of the penalty spot. Fortunately, Leno's concentration was concentrated enough to block the ball off the line with a one-arm leap and avoid the unfavorable situation of falling behind the score.

Five minutes later, Jesse Lingard won a free-kick from around 24 metres from the visitors' goal from just outside the box, and Andreas Pereira, who had a set-piece of 18, stood in front of the penalty spot, even Pogba, who also had an excellent free-kick effort.

As a result, the direct shot with a strong arc almost grazed the Arsenal post and hit the bottom of the crossbar, then fell at great speed, smashed near the goal line and bounced high. The German goalkeeper Leno, who had just flown to save but failed to catch anything, reacted quickly in the second time, completed the half-up action at almost the limit speed, and then immediately scooped the ball into his arms, while always paying attention to the relative position of the ball and the goal line to avoid the tragedy of an own goal.

Before he could land again, there was a deafening cheer throughout Old Trafford and the United players were already rushing to Andreas Pereira to celebrate in the middle.

At the same time, the Sky Sports commentator, who was sitting on the live broadcast seat to broadcast the game, also shouted "GOOOOOOOOOO - al!" The iconic phrase confirmed the goal as valid, and even the logo of Manchester United 1-0 Arsenal was already displayed on the TV screen.

However, just as the Arsenal players, mainly Leno, tried to find the referee to plead their case, the home team's celebration came to an abrupt halt because the referee on duty, Kevin Friander, never blew the whistle to signal that the goal was valid, and he did not make a gesture to point to the centre circle, which means that there are some controversial issues at least so far.

Sure enough, after only thirty seconds, Kevin Freend, who had been pressing his left hand to his cochlea, gave his own instructions, and the free kick just now did not go in, and the game continued.

The Manchester United players and the crowd of more than 60,000 spectators were obviously unacceptable to see this reversal, but the latter could express their displeasure with loud boos, but the former could only force this tone down first, because their opponents had already started to launch a rapid push. The ball flew from the hands of the visiting goalkeeper to the front 20 metres of the home team's penalty area in less than ten seconds, and if it wasn't for Nemanja Matic's timely block, Lacazette would have even been within range of a long-range shot that could have been lifted straight up.

In the end, in order to avoid the gaps left by the two centre-backs who were still chasing back at high speed, Mourinho's favorite and experienced Serbian midfielder used a slightly dangerous tackle to end the Gunners' counter-attack. Although he received a yellow card for this, it was worth the price of preventing a possible major threat to his own goal.

However, in the next minute, Arsenal's free-kick from a position a little far away from the opponent's goal was not delivered, because the Manchester United players had surrounded the referee and wanted to ask for an explanation, because many people were convinced that the previous direct free kick was definitely scored.

Fortunately, the FA and the Premier League, although they have always resisted the introduction of VAR systems, have long used what is arguably the most advanced and accurate goal-line technology in the world. Through careful observation by the technical team from the sidelines, Friande received 100 per cent confirmation from his colleagues through headphones that there was a ball about a finger wide that did not cross the goal line, and according to the rules, it was not a goal.

After the appeal was invalid, the Red Devils could only reluctantly accept this cruel result.

On the sidelines, Mourinho's face has turned iron blue, which makes others look palpitated.

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