Arsenal Told Why £54m Signing Has Underwhelmed Despite Chelsea Performance

Arsenal striker Viktor Gyokeres scored and assisted against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night. 

The Gunners take a one-goal lead into the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final as they went to Stamford Bridge and beat Liam Rosenior’s Chelsea 3-2. Goals for the Gunners came from Martin Zubimendi, Viktor Gyokeres and Ben White.

Mikel Arteta will be delighted that his side were able to put on a show against the Blues, and he’ll go into their game against Nottingham Forest this weekend full of confidence.

Gyokeres will have been relived to score on Wednesday, as the Swedish striker has struggled since joining for £54m in the summer. He’s scored just eight goals in all competitions, including just five in the Premier League. However, a deep dive into the Premier League stats, reveals why he may have struggled.

Gyokeres is the tightest-marked player in the Premier League

Many have been critical of Gyokeres this season for his lack of goals, especially because he joined the Gunners after a season where he scored 54 goals in 52 games for Sporting CP.

However, when you look at the data, his struggles may be down to how much of a threat other teams view him as. Sky Sports produced a data set of who are the most-tightly-marked players in the Premier League and guess who is number one?

Gyokeres has the least amount of space to operate out of any player in the league, as he has a total space of just 3.28m when he’s available to receive the ball. To put that into perspective, second on the list was Leeds United’s Dominic Calvert-Lewin, and he has an total of 4.4m, which is over a metre more than Gyokeres.

The Swedish striker has been really good for Arsenal in terms of his hold up play, and ability to create space for others around him. However, Arteta will hope that after the Chelsea game, his confidence has boosted, and he can kick on and put up big numbers during the second half of the season.

Click here to see Arsenal’s latest injury news.