Viktor Gyökeres has given the clearest possible answer to the talk about his Arsenal future: he wants to stay.
The Viktor Gyökeres question has followed the Sweden striker all autumn. There was plenty of speculation about a move in the summer, and the January window opens again in seven weeks, so every quiet spell on the bench has been read as a sign he could be heading out.
Speaking in Valencia, where Sweden are preparing for their Nations League games against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Poland, the 28-year-old was asked directly. According to Fotbollskanalen, his answer to “Do you want to stay at Arsenal?” was a simple “I do.”
Why does Gyökeres feel better about Arsenal now?
The minutes have finally started to come. His playing time was limited, to put it mildly, at the start of the season, but he has since started games in the Champions League and the League Cup, plus one in the Premier League.
The high point was the 2-1 win over Slavia Prague, when he scored one and set up another in the Champions League. We covered how Arsenal won in Prague at the time, and it was a night that did his case plenty of good.
Gyökeres was upbeat about how things stand, even with the cup exit still fresh. “It feels good when I’ve been playing. We’ve won most of our matches. It was a tough defeat in the cup [against Fleetwood]. Otherwise, it has felt good for me personally and for the team,” he said.
“I’ve done well recently when I’ve had the chance to play. Right now, it feels good.”
What did he say about Arteta?
There was no hint of a fallout with Mikel Arteta either. “Communication with Arteta is good. We talk about football and how we should play. Before a match, if I’m going to start, we talk about the opponents and what I should be thinking about,” Gyökeres explained in a TV interview with Fotbollskanalen and TV4.
‘I couldn’t care less what they say’
Even the Prague performance did not stop the criticism. Former players Nigel Reo-Coker and Troy Deeney both had their say afterwards, but Gyökeres insists little of it gets through.
“Sometimes it might reach me, but generally not that much. If I score and provide an assist in the Champions League, I couldn’t care less what they say. It’s nice to put in performances like that, to deliver for myself and for the team. That’s where the focus is,” he said.
He has also made peace with the negative attention that follows him. “It’s natural too. That’s what gets the most headlines and what sticks most when people listen. I understand that’s how it is.”
Is a January exit for Gyökeres now off the table?
Not completely, because nothing is ever settled until the window shuts. But this is a long way from the picture painted earlier in the season, when stories like the one about him learning Arabic were being read as clues to a move.
For us, this is the right attitude at the right time. Arsenal need two strikers who can carry a title push into the spring, and Gyökeres choosing to fight for his place rather than sulk about it is good news for Arteta. As David Raya said after Prague, he earned that night. Now he has to keep earning the starts, and on this evidence he wants to do it in north London.
