Gyokeres is the cherry on Arsenal’s Champions League cake

Viktor Gyokeres is more likely to help Arsenal win the Champions League than the Premier League.

We’ve won our domestic league title 13 times, landed 3 doubles and won a title unbeaten, but Arsenal have never won the European Cup and that hurts, deeply. It’s long felt like my one remaining Arsenal ambition.

We’d love to win the Premier League of course and it’s been 21 long years since we last won the title, but in truth it is extraordinarily hard to win. The Champions League carries massive aura and prestige, but few people realise that technically the Champions League is actually easier to win than the Premier League.

To win the Premier League you have to be the best team from 20 clubs over 38 matches across 9 months. That is a Herculean task! When you consider the spending power and inevitable success of Manchester City and Chelsea since we did the Invincibles in 2004, plus Liverpool’s resurgence in recent times, it is a formidable task to finish top of that pile.

The Champions League contains the greatest club sides in Europe, including those from England. It is daunting. However, crucially, it is still in essence just a buffed-up cup competition. And there is a basic truth to every cup competition: you don’t have to be the best team to win it, you just need to keep going through. 

Half the teams go out every round after the group stage. You might avoid some of the best sides and up with nobody else left to play, so you get the trophy. 

Gyokeres is the cherry that Arsenal’s Champions League cake has desperately missed. If we can reach the Champions League semi-finals last season without a proper striker, imagine what we can do now that we’ve signed one. 

If we can integrate Gyokeres in a truly strong way, I remain convinced we can actually win the Champions League this season. Imagine. He is the Shearer-esque bustler we’ve long missed.

Finally, we have a crucial fear factor to rival Haaland and Salah. Finally, Arsenal can step up from being a nice bunch of triers, to being genuine contenders. If Gyokeres had joined any other Champions League rival, we’d expect that they would now be massive contenders to win it. Arsenal should be seen no differently.

Some Arsenal fans are currently perturbed that Gyokeres has not featured strongly in his pre-season outings so far. Seriously, here’s a healthy reminder: pre-season games are basically public training matches. They’re also an elaborate hoax to pretend that we don’t know what we’re doing. There’s no point giving anything away before the start of the season.

Pre-season games have 2 main purposes: get fit and don’t get injured. Every season, someone somewhere does an ACL during pre-season or early season and misses the entire campaign. We know this only too well with Jurrien Timber. You wish that on nobody and desperately hope that Arsenal do not befall this disaster.

Already, James Maddison and Levi Colwill have both suffered ACL injuries and both will now miss the whole new season and most likely the World Cup. Horrendous.

Football can create misleading illusions that talent can and should shift seamlessly. But look at the Gyokeres transfer – and any other – more realistically: Gyokeres has moved countries to start a new job. That’s the reality. Imagine how hard anyone would find that. 

To prove yourself in a wholly new environment, with new work colleagues, while you go to work being watched publicly by thousands of people who are sat literally yards away, plus millions of other watching privately all over the world. A lot is expected of professional footballers.

Gyokeres will ultimately be judged on his goal record, that’s the way it works. Strikers are expected to score goals, period. It sets narratives, creates myths and papers over cracks. Score and you’ve played well. Don’t score and you’re a flop. Gyokeres has proven himself to be a goal machine, but Arsenal must learn fast how to oil him.

Slow sideways Arsenal has to end. It’s equally proven not to be good enough. Now we must adapt our play to suit Gyokeres, as our great hope, less so the other way round. If we can integrate Gyokeres to be our fear factor goalscorer maniac, the Champions League is truly on the table.

Read Simon Rose in every print edition of the Gooner Fanzine. 

Follow him on Twitter @thatsimonrose

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— The Gooner (@GoonerFanzine) August 8, 2025