Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown has issued his verdict on striker Viktor Gyokeres, who hasn’t scored in five games for the Gunners.
Mikel Arteta’s side sit at the top of the Premier League table after seven weeks, and coming out of the international break, Arsenal are the favourites to win the league title according to the most recent supercomputer simulations.
However, for all that has been fantastic for Arsenal, summer signing Viktor Gyokeres hasn’t scored in five games, and many pundits are starting to question whether he will be the signing that Arsenal thought he would be.
The Gunners spent £64m on Gyokeres from Sporting CP, and despite scoring 54 goals in 52 games last season, he has managed just three goals since joining at the Emirates.
Keown backs Arsenal striker to improve
But, former Arsenal defender Martin Keown has backed Gyokeres to improve, saying that his struggles have been down to the way that the Gunners have been playing, which has started to change.
He told talkSPORT: “I see that he’s a work in progress, I’m seeing that he’s getting fitter, he’s a bull of a striker, we’ve seen signs that he’s getting that strength.
“The ball is going through the Arsenal midfield much quicker now, don’t take too long on the ball, get it forward quickly. They’ve not used him enough, but that’s changing now and I think that he’ll profit from that.”
Gyokeres and Isak have “forgotten to score goals”
Gyokeres is currently away on international duty with Sweden alongside fellow Swedish star Alexander Isak, who broke the Premier League record transfer fee amid his move from Newcastle United to Liverpool.
Sweden recently lost to minnows Kosovo in the World Cup qualifiers and they also lost to Switzerland last week, which has placed the Sweden manager Jon Dahl Tomasson’s future in doubt. The manager said to the Sweden Herald that Gyokeres and Isak have forgotten how to score.
He said: “It’s killing us. We weren’t good enough. We concede cheap goals and it seems like we’ve forgotten how to score goals.”
Arsenal fans will be hopeful that the Sweden international is able to break his duck in the Gunners’ next game which comes against Fulham after the international break.
