Viktor Gyokeres joined Arsenal from Sporting in the summer as Europe’s most prolific goalscorer, with a phenomenal 54 goals in 52 games in all competitions last season.
But with a stark difference in style between Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal and Portuguese champions Sporting, there was doubt about whether he would be able to produce a similar level of output in the Premier League.
At the midpoint of the season, the 27-year-old has scored five league goals, including two penalties.
So why have the Sweden striker’s numbers dropped so drastically? Are Arsenal not playing to his strengths, or is he simply not as good as his spell in Portugal had suggested?
At Sporting, Gyokeres was the lone striker in a system that did not always pen teams in their own box.
As the team that were crowned champions, they naturally usually dominated games, but they often hit long passes to Gyokeres soon after they regained possession rather than use a more methodical build-up.
That played to Gyokeres’ qualities. He has a traditional centre-forward’s physical profile but controlling difficult passes and linking play are not key strengths of his game.
Instead, Gyokeres thrived when Sporting brought him into play in three ways:
1) Quick darting movements towards the ball
2) Running in behind from wide starting positions
3) Roll the defender when the ball was fizzed into his feet
Gyokeres enjoys hanging on the last line of the defence, often from wider positions. Running in behind from the right was a frequent method of scoring for him at Sporting.
Even from wide angles he is able to generate power, and that ball-striking quality with his right foot was a key reason for his prolific output at Sporting.
Arteta will likely be trying to manufacture this scenario more often through Arsenal’s pattern of play.
From the left, he would run in behind and shoot across goal well with his slightly weaker foot, but he often preferred to stand the defender up like a winger.
It meant more touches, but he would often cut across the box before shooting powerfully with his favoured right foot.
When the box became more crowded, and Sporting’s attack had been slowed down, Gyokeres adapted.
He would hold his run and look to receive the ball in front of the defence, often on the edge of the box, to give himself extra time and space to get his shot away.
It is also worth noting that 20 of his 54 goals in all competitions were from the penalty spot in 2024-25, and he did also score some tap-ins from cut-backs.
However, the majority of his goals and indeed his overall shots came when he had space to run into and time to take more than one or two touches before getting his shot away.
Arsenal build up in a more deliberate manner to Sporting, with rotations designed to manipulate opponents’ defensive shape.
They favour passing sequences on the ground as they seek to play through and around teams rather than hit early long passes.
This is largely forced on them, because Premier League sides generally defend against Arsenal with compact low blocks, resulting in a crowded penalty box that means there is minimal space behind the defence.
So, Gyokeres often finds himself operating in a congested penalty area with less space to generate momentum – a clear contrast with how he excelled at Sporting.
Instead, at Arsenal he is usually trying to get on the end of crosses – but former England striker Gary Lineker believes he could be more proactive.
“Like most strikers, he waits to see where the ball is going and then attacks the space, but that’s what defenders do,” Lineker said on The Rest Is Football podcast.
“As a striker you’ve got to gamble on where you think the ball might go and you go just as it’s about to be crossed. So that way, you steal a march on the defender. I don’t see that too often from Gyokeres, at present.”
Gyokeres faces the difficult task of trying to flourish in a new league – where the standard is generally higher than where he excelled last season – and in a team that plays a different style.
But he cannot be wholly excused from blame for his poor output. Arsenal have played 68 through-balls this season – the most of any team in the Premier League.
It suggests a deliberate ploy to get the most out of their new striker.
But with well-organised, athletic Premier League defences able to recover quickly, Gyokeres is often forced to recycle the ball rather than be able to have an attempt on goal, as he so often did at Sporting from those positions.
So, even when Arsenal have played more directly, Gyokeres’ opportunities to threaten the goal have been reduced.
One solution to help Gyokeres prosper could be to pair him with a complementary team-mate such as Kai Havertz.
Havertz is good at occupying centre-backs and linking play while Gyokeres, as we have seen, is at his best attacking space in behind before striking the ball with power.
By having a more natural ‘back-to-goal’ striker to occupy the centre-backs, space could open up at the edge of the box, where Gyokeres’ shooting is dangerous.
A useful comparison would be Romelu Lukaku and Lautaro Martinez’s partnership at Inter Milan, with Gyokeres in the Argentina forward’s role.
While Gyokeres is not scoring at his Sporting rate, he has still contributed to Arsenal being top of the league.
His pressing has forced opponents into errors in dangerous areas that Arsenal have capitalised on while his selfless off-the-ball running has pulled centre-backs out of position and opened up space for his team-mates to score.
Gyokeres and Arsenal will however want more goals.
Adi Viveash, the former assistant manager at the Swede’s former club Coventry City, told Sky Sports: “[Viktor] would get frustrated if he went three or four games without a goal.”
Making him Arsenal’s penalty-taker and talking up his contributions in build-up play outside of his goals might lessen his frustration, but Arsenal may well need to work out how to get more from their £64m striker if they are to win their first title since 2004.
