Gyokeres finally lives up to his £64m fee and shows he offers more than just goals
Arsenal 4-0 Atletico Madrid (Gabriel 57′, Martinelli 64′, Gyokeres 67′, 70′)
EMIRATES – Nine games, 10 hours, 600 minutes. How do you measure a Viktor Gyokeres drought? Not the lyrics to Rent, but Mikel Arteta’s predicament for the past five weeks, when there has been little else at Arsenal over which to agonise.
The question is moot now. Two goals in three minutes against Atletico Madrid were a deserved point-proving from a player who went to such lengths to get his move to north London in the first place. If rumours are to be believed, he broke up with a long-term girlfriend so that he might cut all ties in Portugal – only then to receive a wave of abuse for struggling to adapt with sufficient immediacy to the English game.
The Champions League has always been a Gyokeres playground, but there should never have been any real sense of panic over a striker with a record of 92 goals in 102 appearances at his last club. Behind the scenes, teammates have been left impressed, if not open-mouthed, by his efforts. Colney’s data gurus have heaped praise on him too.
This is the lot of the £64m summer addition, playing out his own psychodrama while his teammates stride to the top of the Premier League and on in Europe. Before the goals he had – perhaps perversely – done even more to justify the fee, his movement off the ball helping Bukayo Saka to stretch open one of the competition’s most notoriously impenetrable defences.
LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 21: Viktor Gyokeres of Arsenal celebrates after scoring their side's fourth goal during the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 League Phase MD3 match between Arsenal FC and Atletico de Madrid at Arsenal Stadium on October 21, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images)
Gyokeres has struggled in Arsenal’s constricted system (Photo: Getty)
As well as his three shots on target, he won five duels and 100 per cent of his tackles. His pressing forced Jan Oblak into a hapless clearance, then into a point-blank save. When Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus are fit, he can offer more physicality and hold-up play than either.
As he charged the ball down in a tussle with Julian Alvarez near the touchline, he earned an ovation from fans and Arteta alike. In another life, it might have been Alvarez wearing the No 14 shirt himself, a long-standing Arsenal target in a pursuit that never came to fruition.
To those nearly men, for the last month Gyokeres’ position has looked unenviable. Just as he wrestled with Issa Diop at Fulham on Saturday, he was again brought down with ease by Jose Maria Gimenez, earning a penalty with neither appeal. These are the fine margins that had, until now, decided the fate of his early days and nights in the capital.
Gyokeres has not always been helped by the machine in which he operates. There is still a touch of gallows humour about Arsenal fans revelling in their record from set pieces. The criticism that they are still not expansive enough creates a siege mentality, by which every lucrative corner and free-kick is a rebuttal to the haters.
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That teams are setting up in such low blocks to frustrate them makes life inexplicably difficult for a confidence player. Arteta has welcomed comparisons between his own style and Diego Simeone, but he made another interesting observation when told this week that his team were reminiscent of George Graham’s miserly but successful Arsenal of the 80s and 90s.
“In modern football, the margins and the results you see … it’s one goal most of the time,” Arteta said, perhaps alluding to his misfiring centre-forward. “That defines whether you win or not so we have to be happy and comfortable with those small margins and find ways to win.”
One-nil to the Arsenal would have sufficed, had this not been the night Gyokeres finally arrived.