Arsenal is poised to finalize the signing of Swedish striker Viktor Gyokeres, who is expected to inherit the club\u2019s renowned No. 14 shirt. The player has swiftly agreed to personal terms and a preliminary transfer fee, reportedly an initial \u20ac63.5 million (\u00a355.2 million, $74.7 million) with an additional \u20ac10 million (\u00a38.7 million, $11.8 million) in bonuses. Delays had centered on the triggers for these add-ons, but Arsenal has now conceded to more attainable conditions to push the deal forward.<\/p>\n
Gyokeres will undergo his medical examination on Saturday, signaling the likely completion of the transfer. The No. 14 shirt carries significant weight at Arsenal, famously worn by Thierry Henry, the club\u2019s record goal-scorer with 228 goals in his first spell from 1999 to 2007.<\/p>\n
Henry originally wanted the No. 12 but accepted 14 after Christopher Wreh declined to relinquish it. Henry briefly wore No. 12 upon his 2012 loan return to the club as Theo Walcott then wore 14. Walcott scored over 100 goals at Arsenal but never reached Henry\u2019s heights and was the first in a line of successors yielding diminishing returns with the number.<\/p>\n
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang followed, starting strongly before exiting under less favourable circumstances. Eddie Nketiah, the most recent wearer, never scored more than five league goals in a season despite donning the shirt.<\/p>\n
Theo Walcott remarked on the legacy of the number: \u201cI\u2019m not superstitious and I didn\u2019t really think of the relevance. Then suddenly I thought, \u2018S—, I\u2019ve taken Thierry\u2019s number\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Gyokeres set to take on this iconic number, anticipation builds around how he will add to the legacy of Arsenal\u2019s No. 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Viktor Gyokeres is set to take Arsenal\u2019s iconic No. 14 shirt as he nears a medical on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":576,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192],"tags":[59,250,296],"class_list":["post-570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","tag-featured","tag-thierry-henry","tag-viktor-gyokeres"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570","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=570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":577,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570\/revisions\/577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}