On Sunday, we covered the latest from Portugal on Viktor Gyökeres, which was roughly that the player is still hoping for a move to Arsenal but that the Gunners have frozen efforts due to the increasing price of a transfer.
Over the past week the drama around the Sporting player has grown, with the player’s camp believing they had an agreement he could leave this summer for €60m plus a further €10m in bonus payments.
Sporting blew that up last week, making it clear privately and then publicly that such an amount simply wouldn’t be acceptable. Arsenal were likely tempted into being interested by the prospect of a relative bargain deal and then somewhat froze as the price went higher, moving closer to other options.
Monday’s edition of Record reports Gyökeres still wants a move to the Premier League, and wants to play Champions League football next season, leading him to Arsenal.
Atlético Madrid and Juventus are said to be pushing to sign the player. It’s worth noting that whilst the Italian media are covering Juve interest as a big story, there’s not much in Spain on Atlético.
Regardless, as it stands, Gyökeres isn’t keen and wants Premier League and Champions League football, and to fight for the title, hence him snubbing Manchester United.
The report states the player ‘prefers to always see the glass half full, believing that Arteta will still make a new effort to include him in his next work group’.
Over at A Bola, they have an interesting column on the current situation, titled ‘Gyökeres doesn’t deserve this’.
A Bola editor Luís Mateus writes: ‘There has been a lot of talk about the subject and I’m not here to assign blame, because in a divorce the blame never dies single, but the person who in two seasons became one of the most influential foreigners and a (two-time) Portuguese champion shouldn’t have his name linked to such a mess, to the blunders of hearsay and accusations from both sides, which are nothing more than the defence of their own short-term interests.
‘The Swedish striker still trusts his agent and has a plan, so he’s not innocent.’
The summer is still young, but the plan from those representing Viktor Gyökeres already looks shaky, and was seemingly built on Arsenal paying a reduced fee in a scenario that was never available.
Going so strong with their messages to the Portuguese media about snubbing Manchester United never looked the wisest move, even if it was done to show Porto the two English clubs wouldn’t be involved in an auction.