Alan Shearer has defended Arsenal forward Viktor Gy\u00f6keres, arguing the summer signing is adding value to Mikel Arteta\u2019s side even if goals have been slower to arrive. Arsenal paid \u20ac73.5 million (\u00a363.8 million, $85.7 million) for the 27-year-old after a prolific spell at Sporting CP in which he scored 97 in 102 matches. So far he has three goals in 11 outings for the Gunners.<\/p>\n
This was the crux of Shearer\u2019s view on BBC\u2019s Match of the Day. “One of his strengths which has suited Arsenal is he actually goes the other way, he goes in behind,” the former Newcastle United forward outlined on BBC\u2019s Match of the Day.<\/p>\n
“I think when he does that, that then creates space for others to play. Last season you had maybe [Kai] Havertz or [Mikel] Merino coming short, and that\u2019s easier for teams to defend against.” The point echoed what Mikel Arteta had said in Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s defence ahead of Saturday\u2019s fixture.<\/p>\n
Heading into the weekend\u2019s fixtures, no Premier League player had made more off-ball runs into the opposition box than the burly striker. “When you\u2019re running the other way, they [the opposition] get deeper and deeper, that then opens the space up for others to play,” Shearer continued. “So I think from that point of view he has improved Arsenal.”<\/p>\n
Shearer\u2019s defence comes amid criticism that focuses on raw scoring numbers. “Whether we like it not, centre forwards are in the business of scoring goals and we get judged on scoring goals, wrongly in my opinion because there\u2019s a lot more to it,” Shearer sighed to The Guardian when he first became a pundit in 2006.<\/p>\n
The former England captain has also spoken recently about Erling Haaland and the elite level at which he operates. “He\u2019s not in the league of [those] three,” Shearer shrugged, “far from that.” Shearer remains confident that Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s goals will arrive, even if they do not match his Sporting return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Shearer: Gy\u00f6keres’ off-ball movement opens space, improving Arsenal even as goals have been scarce..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3928,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,172],"tags":[1081,1162],"class_list":["post-3929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-epl","tag-adaptation","tag-analytics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3929","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=3929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}