For years the football world Arsenal called on to sign a striker and the Gunners have finally responded. Viktor Gyokers has arrived at the Emirates.
The move is a striking for the Premier League – no player in Europe's top eight divisions corresponded to the 39 league goals of Gyokees for Sporting last season and it could herald the arrival of another elite goal scorer for the division.
But it is even more important for Arsenal, given their editions under Mikel Arteta.
Before this summer, only £ 75 million went to players who naturally play in the front three, since Arteta took over. The majority of that amount went through the transfer of £ 45 million from Gabriel Jesus from Manchester City in 2023, with Leandro Trossard the only other major expenditure in that department.
There was also an extra £ 65 million spent on Kai Havertz, but the German initially started as an attacking midfielder for Arsenal, before he moved to the central forward role.
In these contexts, Arsenal is that Gyokeres signs and the move for the £ 52 million Noni Madueke on paper is useful. Not only do the Gunners invest in an area where they need more quality and figures – Jesus is out with injury for the rest of this year – but in Gyokeres they also bring a natural center to the front, which Havertz has never really been.
There is also the earlier experience of Gyokers with English football, through his successful Stint at Coventry, where he scored 40 goals in 97 games. “He was really incredible,” says Adi Viveash, who coached and guided the striker there, to Sky Sports.
“His strength, taking the ball and run with it, bursting through holes, linking the piece, being very good in both boxes that set set piece-what no power was of him, but he certainly became very good in defensive set pieces with me through pre-postage defense.”
He sounds like an Arsenal player. Except that compared to the options in the Arteta team, he is not. On top of his profile of a natural No. 9, he is stylistically different from what the Gunners have.
Viveash describes Gyokeres as “a physical machine” and others have called him a 'battering ram'. A diverse area of his skills, compared to the options of Arsenal, is his ability to wear the ball great distances.
Gyokeres was in third place last season in the Portuguese top flight for Progressive Carries The Pitch, which is particularly impressive, since ball defenders have dominated these statistics throughout Europe.
Compared to the strikers of Arsenal, his running capacity is a different level. In terms of the progress of their team, Havertz and Jesus succeeded 40m and 48m per 90 respectively. Gyokeres went up with 53 m per game – more than half of the length of the pitch.
“His ability to run and continue to run and keep running and keep running is the thing that distinguishes him in the championship,” Vivash adds.
“They can produce the strikers in other teams three or four brilliant runs, but he would do 12, 13, 14.”
It is especially important considering the way Arsenal attacked last season. Last season they had the sixth lowest shots of fast breaks and really struggled to become the defense to attack quickly.
Signing a center that can be charged by defenses and attacking can accelerate – he scored 23 goals of fast breaks last season – can help repair these dilemmas.
“If two or three defenders came to take the ball away from him, his mentality was: I will go through you and so he is,” Matty Godden, who played with him in Coventry and spoke with Sky Sports.
Gyokees also likes to make behind, with Havertz and Jesus not blessed with the burning pace and the power of the attacker to test the back lines.
“If your VIK left half a throw with a high line and you are wrong, you will never catch it,” Vivash adds. “He keeps making the run behind him, so that you wear opposition.”
At Arsenal, Gyokeres does not always have that luxury of space to burn in – since the Premier League title finances often have the task of breaking down a low block.
That was also a challenge with which Gyokeres was confronted in Coventry, as soon as the championship worked out its talents. “In the end, the defensive lines clearly dropped,” Vivash recalls.
“I used to work a lot of work with him in tight areas, because when he came up with a full grass on a throw [to run into]It was easier for him. It took a lot of cajoling to let him understand and buy it. “
It was not the only area of disagreement in which Gyokeres was involved in Coventry. While the Swedish attacker at the Sky Blues arrived as an extra crop after the failed spells in Brighton and Swansea, he developed into a top goalscorer that Coventry almost came to the Premier League Reed-Dus created an ego.
“VIK would like training sessions as VIK wanted to work,” Vivash recalls.
“He wanted to finish at a certain time, he wanted to do this, he wanted to do that. He had a strong character, strong personality and if you get two like this, you have to find a way to communicate.
“And sometimes you would go heads, really for the well -being of each other, but he certainly understood his value as time progressed.” The way of his sporting departure – a refusal to appear for the preseason to force a movement – has similar tones.
It would be interesting to see how Arteta would manage that type of temperament if it appears again.
How much weight can his goals in Portugal be given?
And there are other doubts when it comes to gyokeres. For all its excellent attacking figures in Portugal, they are still under the microscope.
Opta arranges the Primeira division as the eighth best competition in the world in terms of quality. The Premier League is great, but the top flight of Portugal is even below the second layer of England, where Gyokees placed his trade before his move to sporty.
Moreover, more than half of his 27 non-Penalty goals were against the lower four teams of the Primeira division.
The best striker in Portugal to move to one of the top clubs of England was also recently done in the case of Darwin Nunez, who scored 26 league goals in his last season at Benfica before he came to Liverpool for a huge fee. The same attacker has not even achieved 26 competition goals in three full seasons at Anfield Combined.
Some will claim that Gyokeres has created a larger splash than Nunez in Portugal, while also pointing to Evanilson's positive relocation from Porto to Bournemouth last season, plus Raul Jimenez's impact at Wolves after participation in Benfica as positive examples of Portugal Lague.
But none of these players came up with the expectations and background that Gyokees currently has at Arsenal.
Many have attributed the failed title races of Arsenal to the lack of a Center Vooruit and although the Gunners have signed players such as Martin Zubimendi and focus on other controversial names such as Ebereechi Eze, there is no doubt that the greatest spotlights will have on them this summer.
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