According to the Daily Mail, Arsenal and Leicester City have joined the list of clubs scouting Valencia’s 19-year-old winger Ferran Torres, with reports claiming that the Spanish teenage prospect has also attracted interest from Premier League clubs Liverpool and Chelsea.
Daily Mail understands that the Premier League clubs are likely to face stiff competition in their pursuit of the La Liga breakout star, with Atletico Madrid and Borussia Dortmund also hot on the youngster’s trail.
The same source claims that Valencia are likely to entertain offers of around £25 million for the 19-year-old winger, who enjoyed his first full season at the senior level the last term.
Torres joined Valencia at the age of 6 as a kid and made his debut for the reserve team as a 16-year-old before being promoted to the senior team at the start of the 2017-18 season. The winger started only twice and played 301 minutes of football in the La Liga in his debut season but he really came of age in the recently-concluded 2018-19 campaign.
The Spanish U-19 international made a total of 37 appearances for Valencia in all competitions this past season, contributing with 3 goals and 2 assists in the process, returns which are quite good given that most of those outings were cameos from the bench.
Torres earned rave reviews and attracted admiring glances from the scouts of several top European clubs in his breakout season and it is no surprise to see him linked with a move to the Premier League.
Essentially a right-winger by trade, Torres is also capable of playing out wide on the left and through the centre as an attacking midfielder. Predominantly a right-footed attacker, he prefers playing in a more conventional role on the right as opposed to an inverted winger on the left, which allows him to use his pace, agility and directness to good effect.
The 19-year-old has caught the eye with his youthful exuberance and willingness to run at his opposite number, whilst also possessing the ability to dribble at pace and create space down the wide areas. Standing at 6ft with a well-built frame, Torres is taller than an average winger and he knows how to use his physique to hold on to the ball in tight areas along the flanks.
A fast, tricky and nippy winger with good physical attributes, the Spaniard also boasts of good vision and above-average crossing ability, meaning that he has got all the raw materials to develop into a Premier League-quality player in the years to come.
To put things into perspective, Torres looks like a wonderful talent and would be a good signing for either of the aforementioned clubs but Leicester City would bag a massive coup and get one over their Premier League rivals if they manage to win the race for the 19-year-old Valencia starlet this summer. The Foxes already have an exciting bunch of young and talented players in their ranks and the addition of Torres might do a world of good to their squad depth.
Leicester showed strong signs of promise under Brendan Rodgers in the latter stages of this past campaign and one would expect them to hit the ground running once again when the new season gets underway in August. While signing a back-up striker to take the pressure off Jamie Vardy’s shoulders and making Tielemans’ stay permanent should be high on the manager’s wishlist for the summer, the Foxes can also do with some more depth in their wide areas.
They have the likes of Demarai Gray and Harvey Barnes as options down the left, and while Marcus Albrighton is definitely a useful player to have in the mix, the Foxes need to make a decision on the future of Rachid Ghezzal, who hasn’t been able to acclimatise to the Premier League since his move from Monaco last summer.
Ferran Torres, though not a finished article just yet, has enjoyed an impressive breakthrough season in the La Liga and snapping him up could prove to be a smart piece of business, and more importantly, a good long-term investment.
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Leicester need to continue with their policy of building a strong core of young first-team players under Rodgers and the acquisition of the Valencia starlet would definitely be a strong statement of intent from the club.