Join The Club
Arsenal signed Viktor Gyokeres to do one thing and one thing only: to score goals.
It was the one thing missing from an Arsenal side that could do just about everything else: they could play through a high press or over it, win with brute force or dominate with superior technicality. But they didn't always put the ball in the back of the net.
It would be remiss not to mention Gyokere's key stats: 18 goals in all competitions makes him the Gunners' top scorer this season, more than anyone managed last season. He needs just three more to score more goals than anyone has in red and white since 2020, when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was top scorer. He already has more goals this campaign than Gabriel Jesus or Kai Havertz has ever managed in a single term.
And in the disastrous defeat to Bournemouth, the Swede scored the consolation goal. That shouldn't be neglected – and he wasn't the worst player on the pitch by a long chalk, as for the third domestic fixture on the bounce, Mikel Arteta's men seemed to be fighting over that particular wooden spoon.
Martin Zubimendi has regressed into a shadow of himself, seemingly unable to play vertically, instead, content to shuffle the ball out to the full-backs and ask them to progress. After a blistering autumn, Leandro Trossard has reverted to last season's type, seemingly unable to perform the basics of his job. Noni Madueke has been an able and willing deputy to Bukayo Saka without too much hint of an end product, and with suggestions that Ethan Nwaneri could be sold, it's fully fair to question whether that £50 million was a smart investment, given the performances the Hale Ender put in on the right wing last season. Kai Havertz, simply put, is not a midfielder. Gabriel Jesus has sadly lost his physicality. Gabriel Martinelli has seemingly given up on league football and will only offer glimpses of his former self in the Champions League.
All of them perhaps deserve more criticism than Gyokeres for the shifts they put in against Bournemouth – but to look at the bigger picture, one of them feels like a much bigger problem than the others. Gyokeres had one job in this Arsenal team: and it's completely changed the dynamic.
Amid the meltdown online and in N5, Andoni Iraola's team were faultless to a man, operating with the same conservative press that Manchester City performed to a tee in the League Cup final. David Raya was left with the ball far too much; Zubimendi wasn't brave enough to receive and play forward. Arsenal were completely penned into their own half.
It never used to be like this. At their best, Arsenal had Havertz as a pressure valve to win aerial duels or Jesus to pick up the second balls from going long. Mikel Merino did both, to a degree. Gyokeres doesn't do either. Havertz, Jesus and Merino would all drift into midfield to bait a press, too, and create a numerical superiority. Gyokeres doesn't do any of this either.
It's been the same all season long. It's usually the bigger teams that press you higher: Declan Rice hadn't lost a ‘Big Six’ clash until Arsenal fell 1-0 to Liverpool at Anfield in August – and since then, the Gunners have failed to beat a drab Liverpool, a 10-man Chelsea and Manchester United at home, before City exposed them at Wembley.
And it's not just the big clashes that Arteta has to worry about. Now, the likes of Southampton and Wolverhampton Wanderers are recognising that if you shut Arsenal from playing out from the back, they don't have the technical level to play through you without Martin Odegaard, and they don't have the physical dominance if they go route one. An Arsenal side that beat you any which way, now, has no answer if you're disciplined and compact, in standing in front of their back four.
Of course, this is an Arsenal side that has little authority when chasing a game in open play, either. Zubimendi is a big culprit; Rice isn't a controller in the centre of the park. Arsenal have lost technicians like Jorginho, Oleksandr Zinchenko, and Granit Xhaka, and have played much of the season without Odegaard. The difference in mentality between this Arsenal team going 2-1 down at Bournemouth and their predecessors 2-0 down in 2023 (when Reiss Nelson took the roof of the Emirates Stadium with a 97th-minute winner) is stark.
But that's the choice that Arteta made. He moved away from grace and control, in favour of blood and thunder. Somehow, their striker hasn't offered either.
Gyokeres was a gamble, and, if rumours are to be believed, a second-choice behind the more expensive Benjamin Sesko. He had huge question marks over where he could scale up his Sporting form – and he's only answered the ones we knew he could. Yes, he can put the ball in the back of the net. Yes, he's reliable for a cut-back. But what about everything else that Arteta has demanded from his centre-forward in the past five years?
There are decisions to be made over the summer. Not just about Gyokeres, and about Arteta's future, of course, but in finding a better balance between the two sides of Arsenal's psyche: the art and the grit. Sandro Tonali in midfield and a new right-back, as rumoured, may fix the issues in build-up – but right now, as it stands in the midst of a title fight in April, with a trip to the Etihad Stadium next week, there is no quick fix to restore Zubimendi back into the player he was at the start of the season. Myles Lewis-Skelly is hugely talented, but he cannot control a game like Zinchenko did. There is no ‘Wengerball button’ Arteta can press to release the handbrake and start playing with freedom.
Arsenal are too far down the road to veer back 180 degrees, but they need to find a left turn from somewhere. Whether they try someone else at no.9, go for a front two or even use a wide target man, they simply can't travel to Manchester City and make the same mistakes again.
The gamble is backfiring, and it is looking like it could scupper everything they've worked for.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
