Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has been clear that Viktor Gyokeres contributes in ways that go beyond scoring. The striker arrived with a prolific record from Sporting \u2014 54 goals in 52 appearances last season \u2014 and was expected to help solve Arsenal\u2019s finishing issues after the 2024\u201325 campaign ended with the club in second for a third season running.<\/p>\n
Kai Havertz finished as Arsenal\u2019s top Premier League scorer last season with nine goals, ending a 101-year run of at least one Arsenal player reaching double figures in the league. Gyokeres has found the Premier League tougher to crack. He leads Arsenal with three league goals but has not scored since tapping in against Nottingham Forest on Sep. 13. Heading into this weekend\u2019s fixtures his drought stretches to eight games and 646 minutes for club and country.<\/p>\n
Arteta, though, has emphasised the striker\u2019s less visible strengths. “He\u2019s going to give you something extra,” Arteta said while previewing Saturday\u2019s trip to Fulham. “Viktor has so many things that are probably not that noticeable. But he also creates an environment and space and solutions for a lot of the players around him, and with the talent that we have in the team, I\u2019m sure that everybody, including him, will benefit from that.”<\/p>\n
Gyokeres provides a fixed central presence that Arsenal largely lacked last season, when Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino were used in unfamiliar forward roles. Defenders routinely grapple with Gyokeres, a physical trait that can remove him from direct involvement while opening opportunities for team-mates. Even off the ball his impact is measurable: he leads the Premier League for off-ball runs into the penalty box this season (49), per Opta.<\/p>\n
Arteta said he had warned Gyokeres about the psychological demand of the role before signing him. “I told him before the first meeting, the nine that I want is a nine that when he doesn\u2019t score for six or eight games, he can handle that,” Arteta revealed. “If not, you have to go somewhere else because the pressure is gone, the expectation is going to be there. So if you put a No. 9 shirt for Arsenal, you have to be able to say, O.K., six games, don\u2019t score. I\u2019m a different player, I start to act in a different way.<\/p>\n
“I want much more of the same of what he\u2019s doing. Once we have those opportunities, put them in. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s going to happen.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gyokeres leads Premier League for off-ball runs and makes space for teammates amid his goal drought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172,1125],"tags":[1081,1019],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","category-strikers","tag-adaptation","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","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=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}