For much of this season, football fans, even Arsenal fans, have regarded Viktor Gyokeres with the kind of suspicion that was once reserved for Stephane Guivarc’h, a man remembered more for a rogue apostrophe than for the goals he scored for France when they won the 1998 World Cup.
That was because Guivarc’h didn’t score any goals in that tournament. Not a single one. He was France’s centre forward in six of the seven games they played and he started in the final against Brazil.
But in a team that featured dream players such as Zinedine Zidane and Youri Djorkaeff, much of his hard work went unseen. He was regarded by many as an afterthought.
Until Sunday afternoon at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, it has felt much the same with Gyokeres. In a team of quicksilver talents, he has been characterised as its clodhopper. There were times when it seemed as if Arsenal had paid £64million to Sporting Lisbon in the summer just to acquire an achilles heel.
It was not that Gyokeres didn’t score goals. It was just that he didn’t score enough of them. And that the ball seemed to bounce off him. And that he often lost it when he tried to hold it up. And that some of his team-mates seemed so reluctant to pass to him that TikTokers made videos about it.
There was a feeling, too, that if Kai Havertz had been able to stay fit, then Gyokeres would have been demoted to the bench. But when Havertz came back from a long lay-off, he soon succumbed to injury again. And Mikel Arteta has been wise enough and stubborn enough to keep faith with Gyokeres.
Martin Odegaard congratulates Viktor Gyokeres after the Swedish striker’s second goal capped off his finest performance for Arsenal so far, against Spurs
The outside perception of Gyokeres as a journeyman floundering in an elite side came to an end in N17 as Sunday afternoon turned into Sunday evening. Gyokeres had what they call in the United States a ‘breakout game’. On an occasion that was hugely important to Arsenal’s fluttering title hopes, he scored two goals and had a claim to be his team’s best player.
To see him tear the Spurs defence apart, to see him score two clinical, emphatic finishes, to see him overpower opponents, to see him run himself into the ground, reminded me at last of the Gyokeres I saw taking Manchester City to pieces at the Jose Alvalade Stadium in Lisbon in Sporting’s 4-1 Champions League win there in November 2024.
Gyokeres scored a hat-trick that night. Arsenal supporters have been waiting for that version of Gyokeres to show up in their colours and against Spurs, he did.
The breakout moment has been coming. His two strikes mean he has scored more goals in all competitions in 2026 (eight, plus two assists) than any other Premier League player.
Strikers, more than any other players, thrive off confidence and Gyokeres is brimming with it now. His performance on Sunday suggested that, instead of being the player who could cost Arsenal the title, he might just be the guy who wins it for them.
Arsenal have not had a striker who has scored 20 league goals in a season since Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did it in 2019-20 and Gyokeres, on 10 with 10 games to play, is unlikely to hit that mark this season, either.
But if he keeps going at his recent rate, if Sunday’s game really was a sliding doors moment for him, then he might get close. Last season, Havertz was the club’s top scorer in the league with nine goals so at least Gyokeres has already surpassed that.
It is hard to overstate how important it would be to Arsenal’s title hopes to have a prolific striker adding to their weaponry. It has been their only real weakness under Arteta but, in their previous three seasons of finishing runners-up in the league to City and Liverpool, it has been the thing that has cost them most dearly.
Gyokeres slots home his second goal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to take his tally to 10 league goals this season
Havertz, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli have shared the club’s top-scorer mantle over the last few seasons and none of them is a classic striker in the way that Gyokeres is. Fitting one into the side has been Arteta’s final hurdle and it is starting to look as if he may just have cleared it.
Statistics from Sunday also suggest that the team is growing used to Gyokeres, too. No striker can thrive without service and it is beginning to look as if Arsenal are finally starting to trust their Swedish front man.
In the debacle of the draw against Wolves last week, commonly perceived as Arsenal’s worst performance of the season, Arsenal players only passed to Gyokeres eight times. Against Spurs, they passed to him 28 times. And Gyokeres delivered.
Just imagine what it will do to Arsenal’s psyche in the title run-in if they believe they have a prolific striker in their ranks as well as sublime talents like Saka, Declan Rice, William Saliba and Gabriel.
City have had that in recent years. Erling Haaland has always been their super-power, their get-out-of-jail card, the best in class, the guy who can get you a win out of nowhere. He is still that player. He remains a remarkable talent.
And it has never felt quite right that Arsenal should be at the opposite extreme. It has never felt feasible that they could win a title with a winger as top scorer or a midfielder. Now that Gyokeres is hitting his stride, that credibility gap does not seem nearly as wide.
A delight to see Dele
A beautiful thing happened at half-time of the north London derby.
Dele Alli, a star who was a reminder of better times for Spurs, walked on to the pitch at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as the club’s Guest of Honour for the day and spoke to the stadium announcer, Paul Coyte.
Part of what made it beautiful was that it was so unexpected. Alli turned what might have been a series of platitudes into a baring of his soul and an expression of love and wistfulness for a golden time in a career that now seems to have slipped away from him.
After a troubled childhood and a spell at MK Dons, Alli joined Spurs in 2015 and made 269 appearances for them, earning 37 caps for England in the process. His fortunes have declined sharply since then and he is currently without a club. He is only 29.
Dele Alli, a star who was a reminder of better times for Spurs, was at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as the club’s Guest of Honour for the day
Alli, still only 29, scored 67 times in 269 appearances for Spurs, including two against Arsenal
He has not played since he was released by Como last year after making one appearance for the club. There were times during the interview when Alli struggled to speak through the emotion of the memories that walking on to the pitch and being cheered to the rafters by the crowd had unleashed.
‘I hope you’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you,’ Alli said. ‘A lot has happened in our journeys since we were last together but I’m back today and I hope you know that you’ll always be my family.’
As he walked off, the crowd rose and sang the song that was always his signature. ‘We’ve got Alli, Dele Alli, I just don’t think you understand. He only cost five mil, he’s better than Ozil, we’ve got Dele Alli.’
For club and for player, those days feel long, long ago.
