Viktor Gyökeres was brought to Arsenal to score the goals to fire them to the title. He hasn’t done that, but his manager insists he is improving the team.
After three consecutive second-place finishes, Arsenal went big in the summer. The aim was clear: don’t let this opportunity to finally end their wait for a Premier League title pass them by.
And after persisting without the “20-goal forward” that so many people insisted was the missing piece in the puzzle for those three seasons, manager Mikel Arteta finally decided enough was enough.
In a way, he didn’t really have a choice.
There had been so much fervour among the fanbase for Arsenal to finally sign a centre-forward who scored more goals than Kai Havertz and got injured less often than Gabriel Jesus that if Arteta had stuck to what hadn’t quite worked for the past three years, he would have left himself open to claims of negligence in the transfer market. If his team failed again, the same old questions would be asked. Critics would have been left wondering why he didn’t “just go out and buy a 20-goal-a-season striker?”
Meanwhile, if he bought a player who could potentially be that forward and, in doing so, showed that he wanted to fill the hole that so many thought needed filling, but still failed to win the title, then he might be afforded some sympathy. “At least he tried,” the fans might react.
The reality of the situation is – and always has been – far less simple. Signing a new forward – even one who actually turns out to score goals frequently – would not guarantee the team improved or scored more as a team than before. And it also goes without saying that there is obviously every chance that the new striker would take a while to find their feet. They might have scored goals elsewhere, in Portugal, say, and looked very much like the “proper number nine” Arsenal needed, but in reality might struggle with life at a new club.
Which all brings us nicely to Viktor Gyökeres, the £64 million natural goalscorer Arsenal splashed the cash on in the summer. By adding a player who “knows where the goal is” to a team that was already functioning very well indeed, Arteta appeared to have found what might be a recipe for success.
In many ways, it is working. Arsenal are six points clear at the top of the Premier League and are looking very good value to win the title. Two-thirds of the teams to boast such a big lead at this stage of a Premier League season have gone on to win it. The Opta supercomputer rates their chances of glory at a colossal 86.2%. They really should end their title drought this summer.
An unassailable lead?
And, yes, Gyökeres is their top scorer. No Arsenal player has scored more Premier League goals this season than the Swede (five), which might come as a surprise to some given how many questions there have been about him since he joined.
He has come in for criticism because he hasn’t really done very much at all. He runs a lot and tries very hard, but often looks out of his depth at this level. Many games have appeared to pass him by; he has had no more than 32 touches in any of his 18 Premier League appearances and has had fewer than 25 touches in 15 of them. He has failed to have a single shot in six different games and has managed just one attempt on four other occasions.
When he does get a sight of goal, his finishes often appear to lack guile or craft; he tends to strike the ball hard, but while seeming to give little thought to how he might actually beat the opposition’s goalkeeper. Two of his five goals have been penalties; without them, he has had chances worth just 4.8 xG all season, at a rate of 0.35 non-penalty xG per 90.
Watching him play has been a largely frustrating experience for Arsenal fans hopeful that he would replicate his remarkable goalscoring with Sporting CP at his new club.
But Arteta has stuck by him, insisting he is happy with his contributions in the face of persistent questions about whether he has failed to live up to expectations.
“He brings so much to the team,” Arteta said in October. “All of us [appreciate him] because he makes us much better. I think we’ve become much more unpredictable.
“He’s so physical, opens the spaces for everyone. The way he presses the ball, holds the ball, it’s just phenomenal.”
Those questions have persisted in the intervening months. Such is the pressure that comes with a big-money move to Arsenal at a time like this that Arteta is regularly asked if Gyökeres’ contributions have been sufficient. And every time, the Arsenal manager has backed his striker.
He is also showing his belief with his team selection, too. Gyökeres started each of Arsenal’s first 10 Premier League games of the season and, after a period on the sidelines, has now started the last five in a row, despite only scoring one goal in that run – a penalty in the 1-0 win at Everton.
Arsenal have not been at their best in that time. They stumbled past Everton and Wolves, and ended up clinging on against both Brighton and Bournemouth but, crucially, they have won all five. That run, coupled with dropped points for Manchester City, have meant Arteta’s men have surged clear at the top of the table.
Over that five-game winning run, the team has only really shown its best for a sustained period in a hugely impressive second-half blitz against Aston Villa, and Gyökeres has been far from immune from further criticism.
But two seasons ago, when Arsenal eventually lost out to City by just two points, it was during the Christmas period, when they took just one point from four games, including defeats to Fulham and West Ham, that their title challenge fell apart. This time around, they have accelerated. Perhaps there is some truth in what Arteta has been saying, then, and Arsenal are a better team this time around.
For example, Gyökeres played an integral role in the goal that put Arsenal 2-1 up against Bournemouth last time out, attracting five defenders towards the ball (below) after chasing and battling hard for Gabriel Martinelli’s flick-on.
Gyokeres vs Bournemouth
He then nudged the ball to Martin Ødegaard, who laid the ball off for Declan Rice to put Arsenal into a lead that they held on to to go six points clear at the top of the table.
Rice was full of praise for his teammate after the game. “It’s tough for him because defenders are so tight on him, and there’s no space for him at all,” he said. “All the boys are with him because of what he is doing for us, even though he hasn’t scored, how he is helping us as a team to press, hold the ball up.
“Without him making that run and holding it, setting it off to Martin, that goal wouldn’t happen.”
Gyökeres certainly is having to deal with the close attentions of defenders, with 83.8% of his touches coming while under pressure from an opponent (within four metres of him). Of players to play 1,000 minutes in the Premier League this season, only eight have a higher proportion of their touches while under pressure.
Whether that is because, as Rice suggested, “defenders in the Premier League want to be able to stop Viktor Gyökeres, because he’s one of the best strikers in the world,” or it’s just part of top-level football, isn’t clear, but he is working hard to shake off opponents.
He has made 86 off-ball runs – defined as “a high-intensity movement by a player not in possession of the ball, lasting at least two seconds” – into the opposition penalty area while his team is in possession in Premier League games this season, at a rate of 6.3 per 90. Among the same group of players with 1,000+ minutes to their name, only one – Liverpool’s Cody Gakpo (6.5) – is averaging more.
Viktor Gyokeres runs into penalty area
Meanwhile, he ranks fifth for runs in behind the opposition backline, with 13.5 per 90, and fourth for runs to make himself available for a cross while the ball is in a wide area, with 3.8 per 90.
That last number is particularly important given how much Arsenal attack with crosses. They have scored more goals within 10 seconds of a cross than any other team in the Premier League this season (18).
We can go some way to quantifying how useful his runs are using a metric called expected threat (xT), which is defined as ‘the likelihood that there will be a shot within the next 10 seconds based on the position of the ball’. We can look at the threat added by off-ball runs by calculating the difference between the xT of the ball at any given time and the potential xT if a player is found with a pass based on where they run. So if, for example, a player adds 0.05 xT with the location of their run, they are increasing the likelihood of a goal by 5%.
There are limitations to this because it might never be possible for a pass to find the run due to the positions of defenders, and the runner may also have strayed offside, but over the course of 20 games this season, these numbers can still be instructive as to how much a player’s off-ball work adds to his team.
Looking specifically at runs in behind the opposition, Gyökeres is adding 0.60 xT per 90 with his off-ball work, which is the third-highest rate in the league, behind only Bryan Mbeumo (0.71) and Evanilson (0.65). For total xT added, only those two and Erling Haaland are above him. This suggests his relentless, tireless movement is adding to the threat that his team carries more than most in the league.
He also does a tonne of great work in trying to win the ball back, responsible for more pressures (956) – when a player whose team is out of possession moves to close down an opponent – than any other Arsenal teammate, despite only playing 1,232 of a possible 1,800 minutes. And he is working to put pressure on opponents all over the pitch:
Viktor Gyokeres pressures
He plays an important role in making Arsenal incredibly difficult to break down, and it was perhaps no coincidence that he had been withdrawn by the time Wolves scored their late, though ultimately inconsequential, equaliser in the meeting at the Emirates last month. Arteta emphasised how disappointed he was with how “passive” his players had been in their defending in the build-up to that goal.
The Swede remains ahead of Jesus in the pecking order, possibly in part because of his pressing, but there does remain the chance that Havertz ousts him once he returns to fitness, with Arteta confirming on Wednesday that the German could be back for the upcoming game against Liverpool. The problem with Havertz last season, after all, was that he apparently didn’t score enough goals for Arsenal to win the title, but Gyökeres isn’t doing that either.
However, the question for now is whether Arsenal are a better team with Gyökeres leading the line. It’s not clear whether they play better football with him, but recent results speak for themselves. And his teammates are unequivocal in their belief that he is helping them out.
“Trust me, he’s doing unbelievably for us,” Rice said after the win at Bournemouth. “We wouldn’t be where we are without him. I think good things are going to come.”
So, how good would things have to get for Gyökeres to be considered a success? If he doesn’t score again and ends his debut season in England on five goals, but Arsenal win the title, he would unquestionably be considered a success, even if that’s his only trophy in England.
What’s more, given Havertz and Jesus have spent so much of the campaign injured, Gyökeres’ presence has been invaluable. Signing him has definitely been worthwhile.
After coming to England to solve Arsenal’s goalscoring issues, he has helped the team out without scoring consistently, and his side are on course to win the title. Perhaps a 20-goal striker was never truly the final piece in the puzzle after all.
Premier League Stats Opta
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