Mikel Arteta has backed Viktor Gyokeres to ‘click’ for Arsenal, but insists the Swedish striker will always have to deal with the external scrutiny at a club like Arsenal.
The summer signing has bagged 7 goals in 21 appearances so far, a long way from his most prolific output at Sporting, and while few expected him to replicate those kinds of numbers, he’s been a player in the spotlight since his arrival.
For the Arsenal boss though, that’s simply a consequence of the high profile role he was brought in to play. Speaking to Sky Sports ahead of today’s trip to Bournemouth, he said, “He’s going to continue to have a lot of noise around him for the next five years, I’m sure about that.
“Since day one, when you sign as number nine for Arsenal, with the background that he has and the expectation that we have as a team, that’s not going away.
“That’s part of his role, and that’s part of life of being Arsenal number nine, and that’s it.”
The Spaniard backed the 27 year old’s mentality as ‘very strong’, and insisted he would demonstrate his goalscoring prowess going forward.
“We try to give him all the support, all the tools, all the solutions and give him confidence,” he continued.
“When I see him train every day, how he is in the meetings, how much he wants to do well, the way he’s working every single match, he will click.
“He will come in and the one thing he’s missing at the moment is to score more goal, but he’s doing a lot of things right.”
With a tricky away fixture at the Vitality, it would be a very nice time for him to step up a bit, so let’s see what today brings.