A season full of missed chances in front of goal left Arsenal fans on their knees for a striker.
It’s a position the north London club have been woeful at addressing since Mikel Arteta became boss in December 2019.
Only two frontmen – Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus – have been signed in that period. That speaks volumes, and makes the signature of Viktor Gyokeres all the more valuable.
Whether the 27-year-old can be Arteta’s final missing jigsaw piece in the Gunners’s quest for a first Premier League title in 22 years remains to be seen.
But the £64million signing from Sporting Lisbon on a five-year contract follows nearly seven months of reports flip-flopping between RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko and Gyokeres.
As recently as two weeks ago, inside sources told Mail Sport how Sporting Lisbon’s approach to a potential sale of Gyokeres had ‘weakened their hand’.
Arsenal believe Viktor Gyokeres could be the man to finally fire them to the Premier League title
The striker has joined in a £64million move from Sporting Lisbon and signed a five-year deal
Mikel Arteta will hope Gyokeres is the final piece of the puzzle after belatedly bringing in a No 9
For a man who celebrates his goals with both hands intertwined on his face in reference to Batman’s arch-nemesis Bane, Gyokeres will hope the physicality and work-rate he possesses can trouble the Premier League’s meanest defences.
His goal numbers are impressive indeed, striking a phenomenal 97 goals in 102 appearances for Sporting, and contributing 26 assists.
The Sweden forward also averaged more than a goal per game last season, with 54 in 52 matches. His playing style first stems from his work rate off the ball. The striker constantly charges into open space through the channels at speed, dragging centre backs out of position because of his extreme movements.
He rarely drops deep to connect, instead looking to be direct and destructive whenever his team-mates have the ball.
Gyokeres is able to do this through a strong, powerful frame, with the agility to meander across the line. The forward also likes to target wide areas, a trait not always associated with a marksman. It ties into his upbringing in Sweden.
The Stockholm-born striker joined IFK Aspudden-Tellus in 2004. The club had three different sides in the same age group to cater for all abilities – beginners, intermediate and advanced. Club president Bjorn Thuresson remembers a child who would often play for all three teams in the same week, just so he could be on the pitch.
He told Mail Sport: ‘In the more competitive teams, he could of course have a more fixed role but in these other more maturing teams or situations, he had to take on different roles.
‘When the competition on the other side was less good, he took on different roles instead of just scoring goals. Because in those games, he could have scored 10 goals, but it would have been for the benefit of no one.
The club had flip-flopped between Gyokeres and RB Leipzig ace Benjamin Sesko
Gyokeres’ numbers are impressive: he scored a staggering 97 goals in 102 games for Sporting
‘So then he could be in a role that was more delivering balls to others, trying to control the rhythm from further back. And he, at times, also worked as a defender and as a wing player.’
His penchant for moving to the left flank is also a desirable trait to Arsenal. Last season, just 32.9 per cent of their attacking touches came in the left third, the lowest proportion of any Premier League team.
For long now, play is often distributed to the opposite side, owing to a reliance on Bukayo Saka, fed by Martin Odegaard and Ben White who are all in sync.
Whereas the 6ft 2in striker’s presence offers Arteta a markedly different option.
Gyokeres has gone from leaving Brighton without playing a single minute of Premier League football to becoming one of Europe’s most prolific strikers. That has been via loan spells in the Championship at Swansea and Coventry, and in Germany with St Pauli.
One source involved in Gyokeres’s move to Coventry says the Swede’s success at the Midlands club was down to prioritising playing position over money.
He told Mail Sport: ‘Coventry and another team in the Championship were in for him. The manager there said, “We see you as a No 9, that’s your position”.
‘We saw that more important than money, not all coaches saw him as a No 9. They (Coventry) had good players who got him the ball in good areas. Callum O’Hare and Gustavo Hamer were fantastic with him and they gave him a lot of balls to work with.’
He spent a loan spell at Coventry City and is now one of Europe’s most prolific strikers
Not everyone is convinced he can repeat his monstrous goal tally in England’s top-flight
However, he isn’t fully convinced that the striker can convert his monstrous goal tally in the Liga Portugal to the Premier League.
He added: ‘I didn’t think any of the big teams in the Premier League would take him because there has been a lot of transfers from the Portuguese league for big numbers which didn’t work out.
‘It’s not the Premier League, Bundesliga. Those teams from eight onwards in the Portuguese league are bottom of Championship level in this country.’
Ex-centre back Uwe Hunemeier was at Brighton when Gyokeres joined the club in January 2018. The forward never made a senior appearance for the Seagulls and, after loan spells to German second-tier side St Pauli and Championship teams Coventry and Swansea, he was sold for good to Coventry.
It was a move that clearly hadn’t worked out at all. Hunemeier, who is now an assistant coach at SC Paderborn 07 in Bundesliga 2, has played against Erling Haaland and Robert Lewandowski. He can see those comparisons, having played and trained with Gyokeres.
‘I played against Lewandowski and Haaland – you need to be really quick to stop these players because they have a physical strength in their game, and they are really quick (in the mind),’ he told Mail Sport.
‘When a striker (like Gyokeres) has confidence it’s so hard for a defender to trouble you. You have to be on his foot, most of the time, but you have to be alert in every second of the game because he’s strong with his head, strong with his left foot, on his right foot, reading the game, going in behind, holding up play.
‘You also need to be in his back to stop these kind of players. They want to cut into your back so you can’t see them. That makes it so difficult with a good striker. They always find a way to get some space.
He brings a blend of physicality and intelligence not seen since the days of Robin van Persie
Gyokeres is pure chaos and that is exactly what Arsenal and Arteta might need next season
‘He’s strong but not as strong as maybe Haaland or Lewandowski because he’s not as big as these players. You have to be tight, give him a nudge in duels to try get him off the ball. But he can score any kind of goal from what I have seen in the last few months.
‘Most of the quick strikers I would say they have a good nose for what’s coming next, but he realizes the situation probably earlier than most of the centre backs.’
It is that blend of physicality and intelligence is what Arsenal have lacked since the days of Robin van Persie.
Gyokeres is pure chaos – and that’s exactly what the Emirates might need.
