Sweden manager Jon Dahl Tomasson has responded forcefully to criticism of Viktor Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s influence at Arsenal, arguing that those assessments miss the striker\u2019s broader contribution. Gy\u00f6keres already has three Premier League goals to his name but is currently without a goal in six appearances. Some observers have highlighted that apparent goal drought when discussing his overall impact.<\/p>\n
Tomasson would not entertain that view. \u201cViktor Gy\u00f6keres is in very good form at the moment and is very good,\u201d Tomasson said. \u201cIf people say he doesn\u2019t have an impact, then they don\u2019t understand football and don\u2019t have a clue about football.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe creates space for other players, works on the ball and makes runs. It\u2019s excellent and he scores goals almost all the time, so he has an impact and has been very good. It\u2019s always nice, as you need time when you come to a new club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those comments came after Arsenal\u2019s 2\u20130 victory over West Ham United, a match in which Declan Rice opened the scoring and Bukayo Saka sealed the result from the penalty spot. Saka\u2019s decision to take the penalty, rather than hand it to Gy\u00f6keres, drew attention and prompted questions about roles inside the squad.<\/p>\n
Insisting any talks over who would be Arsenal\u2019s primary penalty taker would remain \u201cin house\u201d, Saka moved to underline that there is no issue within the dressing room over Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s involvement. \u201cI think Viktor\u2019s playing really, really well,\u201d Saka concluded. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt he\u2019s going to score goals. What he\u2019s bringing to this team, us as his teammates, we\u2019re so grateful for what he does, how he holds the ball, how he makes the runs, the threat he gives us.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a big part of the reason why we\u2019re winning these games. His goals will come. We know that, we believe that and we believe in him. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any doubts. He\u2019s still up, he\u2019s still happy and he\u2019s still giving his best every game.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Tomasson and Saka alike, the emphasis is on Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s team contributions as well as the expectation that his scoring return will follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tomasson rejects criticism of Arsenal striker’s impact; Saka and the squad express confidence in him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,961],"tags":[1081,826,253],"class_list":["post-3625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-international","tag-adaptation","tag-bukayo-saka","tag-declan-rice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}