In the last few seasons Arsenal fans have had plenty of topics to talk about and one of the mainstays of the discussions was our ongoing search for a more died in the wool striker who would lead the line and show far more consistency when it front of the net – and after many months of waiting we now finally have our man in the shape of Viktor.
The 27 year old, 26 capped Swedish international striker, has long featured on the transfer window speculation rumour mill when it came to manager Mikel Arteta’s reported interest in him, and having just agreed a fee believed to be £63.5 million in total, he is now with the first team group and has begun his pre season training with us – insisting that although he has opted to take on the iconic No 14 shirt, he has ‘no intention’ of being compared with the legend that is Thierry Henry as they are different players.
Gunners fans are no doubt still watching videos of the great man in action, and when the season begins with all the broadcasts available, they will be tuning in to see how Gyokeres gets on and some will prefer to download a VPN to protect their own security and privacy as they do just that.
But different players they certainly are, Henry was a talisman full of flair and creativity, but the former Coventry City striker is far more of a traditional centre forward and we have been crying out for one for years. In amongst the captures that we have made so far this summer, Gyokeres is the one fans should relish the most, particularly as we finally look to overcome our consistent runners up placing in the Premier League and get ourselves over the line and back to lifting the trophy.
Last season we were far tighter in defence, but goals scored continued to be our Achille’s Heel and on an offensive front we were on a decline for the last few years with the goal tally and chance creation stats falling year on year. Despite the defensive and midfield improvements that we had seen, we had become far more wasteful up top. With Gyokeres finding the net 68 times in 66 league appearances, and 14 times in 19 European games (total record with Cups is 97 goals in 102 matches), he is clearly the kind of scoring talent that could massively turn those particular stats around given the quality of is finishing.
Whilst he will undoubtedly have an impact on our goals scored column and our over all conversion rate, he is not the kind of player who will overly involve himself in chance creation, as he much prefers to stick around the penalty box waiting to pounce as a central outlet when he finds space. However, that in turn should help us to improve the number of chances we create purely through his movement and being less likely to drift out of position, it is less likely that our creative players will be unable to find a goalscoring option and ultimately end up going backwards or back out wide whilst they wait for someone else to present themselves as an option in the penalty box.
Gyokeres is also very likely to take his chances to have a pop at goal whenever one presents itself, which in turn will get the goalscoring opportunities up and as much as people like to complicate football these days, more often than not if you take more good shots than bad you are likely to score more goals.
Come next May, his involvement could have made a massive difference to our chances.
