By 2025, Viktor Gyokeres is sure to be a player in high demand. The Swedish striker is persistently proving himself to be among the best strikers that Europe has to offer.
During the 2023-24 season, he made 58 goal contributions, consisting of 43 goals and 15 assists, making him the most productive player in Europe’s top five leagues. If anyone believed that the 26-year-old was a one-hit wonder, his performances this season are clearly demonstrating otherwise.
In 18 games this season in Sporting CP colours, he has already racked up 23 goals and four assists. Top clubs must be examining those numbers and considering him as a crucial component to enhance their offensive capabilities.
Arsenal has obviously shown interest in the ex-Coventry man. PSG is another team reportedly interested in him.
While discussing Gyokeres’ potential move to Paris, Football Transfers’ Robin Bairner (on his PSG Talk Extra Time) cautioned the Ligue 1 giants regarding the completion of that deal. He has suggested that, similar to Darwin Nunez, Gyokeres could thrive in Portugal, but it remains uncertain whether he will achieve that level of success following a significant transfer to a top club.
“Gyökeres is hot property right now, yet that also equates to an inflated price,” Bairner wrote. “Liverpool spent €75 million on Darwin Nunez, who had a similar scoring record to the Swede in Portugal, yet found they had bought themselves a lemon.
“PSG must tread carefully because this is a deal they cannot afford to get wrong. A January move for Gyökeres may be attractive due to his form and current profile, but with a release fee of €100m, that is a hefty price to pay.”
In his final season at Benfica, Darwin Nunez scored 26 league goals in 28 matches. Liverpool secured his signature, beating a host of other European clubs, yet he has not experienced significant success at the club three seasons later. The most he’s scored as a Red in the league is 11 goals.
Liverpool reached an £85 million agreement with Benfica for his swoop, yet he has not quite met expectations.
One might certainly question whether Gyokeres can replicate his success in another league after dominating the Portuguese football scene. We wait to see if Arsenal’s decision-makers will take this Gyokeres warning seriously. However, there are moments when taking a risk with an individual is necessary.
What do you think?
Peter Rix
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That would be a blunder of untold proportions. 100 million for Gyokeres, when the world is full of strikers and Arsenal played hardball with young Obi, letting him go to Manu just this season?
I don’t think you can expect the numbers to translate, but you have to consider if his attributes as a whole make him worth that amount. He showed against city he can play – pace, power, skill, workrate, finishing ability – if he’s also consistent against a variety of opponents, he might well be worth it. For 100m, you need a high level of confidence he’d be one of the top players in the first team – can’t expect any more than that, really.
I don’t believe it’s worth the risk… the Premier has a level of difficulty far above Portuguese football, for up to around 70M it might be worth the risk, but I would like us to take a little risk on more “unknown” promising players.
Well, all hours doubts will be clarified in 2 weeks time when we play Sporting in a CL game at their home.
A very interesting confrontation between him and Saliba or Gabriel. Arteta have to prepare the team very carefully with specific instructions because they play on the counter with speed and aggression. He normally start speeding as soon as they control the ball near the central line because he knows they send the ball to the empty space behind the back of the defenders.
Well, not really. He could play a blinder against Arsenal and score a goal or two or he could have a very “quiet” game which he may have had against any opponent. However, that doesn’t mean anything as to whether he’d be a good player or not for Arsenal across the 38 game EPL season.
After all, if you take an extreme example, a single game by Haaland wouldn’t tell you much, if anything, about how he performs across the whole season. He’s been pretty average in some recently, but every major club (including Arsenal) would still snap him up tomorrow if they could.
Every transfer, even Haaland’s, has a degree of risk, some much higher than others. The potential buyers have to do their homework thoroughly – and then, if they proceed, still hope for the best!
Well if he score one or 2 goals against our 2 excellent central defenders it will means that he is better than Haaland because he never could do it.
The other thing is that good strikers they do not have “quiet” games even when not scoring because their role is looking for every opportunity to do the damage. We do not have one.
Finally a club with the necessities of a goal scorer like our, can not wait for a period 38 games in the EPL to see if a guy is good enough for us.
You’ve missed the points I was making, I’m afraid.
First, transfer decisions aren’t (and quite rightly, shouldn’t) be taken on what a striker does against any particular team, it’s what the potential buyers think he is likely to do across all the teams. It’s not a question of waiting for the 38 games – he would already have been bought. That’s the whole point of the “risk” element to any transfer I mentioned. Clearly you can’t wait, you have to hope a new striker will do it when you buy him, based on all the evidence you have.
Second, should Gyokeres score two or more against Arsenal it doesn’t make him a better striker than Haaland, that’s just daft. It just means he’s more successful against Arsenal in that one game. If the title was decided on a striker’s ability to score against a particular team it would matter – but it isn’t, so it doesn’t.
Third, yes of course strikers can be busy without scoring in games, but they certainly can also just have an “off-day” generally. Let’s face it, Jesus has had pretty much that for the whole of this year, hasn’t he.
“better than Haaland”…hmmm
“good strikers don’t have quiet games”…hmmm