Alan Shearer – perhaps the greatest striker in Premier League history – has given his honest assessment of Viktor Gyokeres at Arsenal so far.
Shearer remains top of the tree in the list of the Premier League’s all-time leading scorers, and by some distance too. His mark of 260 goals is 47 clear of Harry Kane. Erling Haaland might have a thing or two to say about that record if remaining at Manchester City for the long haul, but for now at least, the record is Shearer’s.
The former England international is more than qualified to give his assessment on strikers and did just that when appearing on Saturday’s edition of Match of the Day.
Arsenal’s 1-0 victory over Fulham was among the contests covered on the show and the subject of Gyokeres – who has now gone over a month without scoring – was put to Shearer.
The pundit made two big claims about Gyokeres, one positive and the other negative.
In Shearer’s mind, Gyokeres has improved Arsenal with one aspect of his gameplay. However, Shearer has no doubts the Swede won’t come anywhere close to matching the goals output he produced at former club Sporting CP.
Gyokeres operated at roughly a goal-per-game at Sporting, but has just three goals in eight league games so far at Arsenal.
“He’s not in the league of the three we showed in the previous clip [Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappe], far from that,” Shearer said.
“But I think he brings a different strength, there’s no doubt that he will have to improve his goalscoring, as you said, he’s only got three.
“But one of his strengths which has suited Arsenal is he actually goes in behind. When he does that it creates space for others to play because last season you had [Kai] Havertz or [Mikel] Merino coming short and that’s easier for teams to defend against.
“When you’re running the other way they get deeper and deeper and that then opens up space for others to play. I think from that point of view he has improved Arsenal.
“I think he will get the goals, obviously, nowhere near as many as he got last season.
“But he will get goals with the number of chances that Arsenal create, he will, and his numbers should improve.”
Can Arsenal win the title with Gyokeres?
According to Joleon Lescott, the answer to that question is no.
Speaking last week, the former Man City defender said: “I would describe Victor Gyokeres as ‘okay’. If you’re going to win the league, your striker can’t be okay, he has to be top.
“I don’t think Mikel Arteta can get Arsenal over the line in the Premier League. But in the Champions League, it’s different.
“With the way he rotates and because of that big gap [before the knockout stages], no one knows what kind of form or fitness teams will be in.
“That suits Arsenal better than having to be consistently good every single week to win the league.”
TEAMtalk has taken a deep dive into Lescott’s claims and in our opinion, Lescott is talking nonsense…