To the surprise of precisely nobody, Viktor Gyökeres has been given further time off by Sporting CP as pressure builds and hope continues that Arsenal will offer a package worth €80m for the striker.
Sporting’s squad returned to preseason training on July 1st, but Gyökeres was given an extra week off because he’d been on international duty with Sweden at the start of the summer. The only issue there was he hadn’t actually been on international duty, he was named in the squad and withdrew with a very minor issue which allowed him to start his break earlier.
Gyökeres was then to be allowed to wait until this coming Monday to start preseason training, with the hope Arsenal or someone else would present an acceptable offer for the player before then and save everyone the blushes of a reunion.
A Bola and others in Portugal now report that Monday has been changed to Friday, July 11th, and the day before Sporting are set to go on their training camp in the Algarve.
The next few days will obviously be crucial, with Sporting unwilling to come down from that €80m package demand and Arsenal in some kind of transfer paralysis when it comes to signing a striker.
Delays over returning to training cannot go on indefinitely and therefore the drama is rising.
Meanwhile, Viktor Gyökeres is thought to be in Stockholm.