Viktor Gyokeres managed 17 touches and no shots in his 68 minutes against Everton. By full-time, former Aston Villa forward Gabriel Agbonlahor had delivered his verdict live on talkSPORT.
“He will be one that won’t be at the club next season. Yeah, 100%,” Agbonlahor said, as quoted by GiveMeSport.
He was blunter still about the Sweden international’s movement.
“Looks like he’s like running in slow motion, isn’t he? Looks like he can’t run.”
Read also: Tom Brady could face $500,000 fine after controversial NFL broadcast
Arsenal won 2-0 at the Emirates on Saturday, 24 October. Ezri Konsa poked in at the back post from a seventh-minute corner for his first Arsenal goal, with Gyokeres credited for the assist, and Gabriel Magalhães added a second-half header on 68 minutes, his first goal in his 200th Premier League appearance for the club, as Sky Sports reported. The win pulled the champions level on points with leaders Manchester City.
Gyokeres’ broader numbers do little for his case. The 28-year-old had been handed his first Premier League start of the season against Everton and has yet to score in the league. Across all competitions he has four goals in 14 appearances, most of those from the bench.
Wyness: ‘moaning internally’ over Arteta deal
The “internal complaints” in the Football London headline refer to a separate story: Arteta’s new contract and a round of staff cuts.
Arteta’s deal, which keeps him at the Emirates until the summer of 2030, was agreed earlier in October and boosts his annual salary to around £25 million. Days later, Arsenal confirmed plans to cut around 60 staff members behind the scenes.
Read also: Bruno Fernandes goes hard on Manchester United
Keith Wyness, the former Everton chief executive, told Football Insider that the sequencing was the problem.
“There’ll be a lot of moaning internally about the way it’s done. And clubs exist very, very much on the staff,” Wyness said, calling the pairing a “bad look” and saying he had expected better from Arsenal than the handling seen at Manchester United.
He was describing staff morale around the Arteta deal and the redundancies, not any transfer decision. The sale talk comes from a talkSPORT pundit, not from inside the club.
No decision from inside the club
No one at Arsenal has said publicly that Gyokeres is being sold, and he remains in Arteta’s squad. Agbonlahor also suggested the club would have moved him on in the summer had they been able to sign Julian Alvarez, who stayed at Atlético Madrid.
Read also: Jalen Hurts played entire NFL game after alarming medical discovery before devastating Eagles news
Arsenal play Brighton on Wednesday, 29 October in the EFL Cup fourth round, before traveling to Burnley on Saturday, 1 November, according to the ESPN schedule.
Read also: Lunin’s verdict on how Real Madrid beat Barcelona
