Mikel Arteta has publicly asked critics to allow Viktor Gy\u00f6keres more time to settle after a demanding start to life in the Premier League. The striker has four Premier League goals from 13 appearances and has also scored twice in the Champions League, a combined return of six goals from 18 appearances that has prompted some debate over his role.<\/p>\n
Arteta acknowledged the step up in level and defended Gy\u00f6keres ahead of Arsenal\u2019s meeting with rock bottom Wolves at Emirates Stadium, noting the striker\u2019s recent injury lay-off and the small sample size of his outings. \u201cThere was a lot of excitement because we were bringing a proven scorer that had probably the best stats in Europe,\u201d Arteta told his news conference on Friday. \u201cHe is a player that comes to a different league, the most demanding league in the world, and what happens if he doesn\u2019t score for five or six games?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was my only question to him: \u2018How are you going to react if you don\u2019t score in five or six games? Can you cope with that? And then what\u2019s going to happen in the next 100 games?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s what you have to see. The sample is very small. So, leave him alone, let him do what he does best, be behind him and I\u2019m sure things will turn out in the right way.<\/p>\n
Gy\u00f6keres missed a month after a hamstring injury, with his last goal coming in Arsenal\u2019s 2\u20130 win over Burnley on Nov. 1. He has appeared in the club\u2019s last three matches in a limited capacity and could receive more minutes against a Wolves side described as rock bottom.<\/p>\n
Arteta stressed that the club must help the forward regain momentum. \u201cWe have to put him (Gyokeres) in the best possible condition to explode and fulfil his potential,\u201d Arteta continued. \u201cBefore the injury, he was in a great place. It took him a while at the beginning because it\u2019s a different league with different demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had no pre-season and now he\u2019s starting to get some momentum, but the thing that\u2019s going to unlock him is goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe needs that for himself, for his confidence, and we\u2019re going to judge his performances based on that as well. That\u2019s logical, but he wants it so badly as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
During Gy\u00f6keres\u2019s absence the makeshift forward Mikel Merino has contributed nicely during the 27-year-old\u2019s spell out injured, a factor that has increased scrutiny but not changed Arteta\u2019s call for patience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta urges patience as Gy\u00f6keres adapts with four PL goals in 13 apps and two in Champions League. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1081,1304,1047],"class_list":["post-5060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-adaptation","tag-benching","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060","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=5060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}