Gyökeres: What’s Going On and Should You Move to Saka?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen one of those Viktor Gyökeres x Bane edits floating around your preferred corner of social media.

So I have to ask - is “you merely adopted the dark, I was born in it” referring to the bottomless pit Gyökeres’ inability to score a goal is putting me in?

But in all seriousness, three goals in his last 13 appearances is NOT what you want from your £60 million striker. At this rate, ABBA might as well edit their lyrics to “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! Some goals, please.”

So, what do we do with our £9.0 million forward? Let’s figure it out by analysing what’s going wrong with Viktor Gyökeres.

The biggest plus of Gyökeres as an FPL asset is, well, Arsenal. They’re good, Premier League–winning good. And while a decent chunk of their title ambitions comes from their frankly ridiculous defence, it’d be unfair not to credit their attack.

Arsenal have ranked in the top three for goals scored in each of the last four seasons and look to have gone up a level this year. Their play looks far more fluid overall, and playing as Arsenal’s centre forward means chances are naturally going to fall at your feet.

Gyökeres’ npxG+xAG per 90 has dropped from 0.87 at Sporting to 0.39 at Arsenal. His xG has more than halved, and his shots per 90 have fallen from 4.08 to 2.30. Furthermore — and perhaps most concerningly — his shots on target per 90 are now below one.

The good news is that Gyökeres’s lack of shots is easy to explain. The bad news is that it’s not as easy to fix.

Gyökeres is slow to get the ball off his feet and shoot, meaning he takes time (time he simply doesn’t have) to get his shot away.

But also, Arsenal relied heavily on progressing the ball through their wingers and fullbacks last season. This starves Gyökeres of the ball in the areas where he’d like to receive it.

That’s a lot of words to simply say I don’t think Gyökeres’ shot numbers will reach the levels of his Sporting tenure anytime soon. Or ever. Which isn’t great.

We started the season with all signs pointing to Gyökeres being on penalties. Then came a potential Arsenal penalty… and Saka had the ball in his hands.

It wasn’t given, so my fellow Gyökeres owners and I continued to live under the delusion that he’d still be the designated taker.

Fast forward to Arsenal vs. West Ham, and Saka left the Emirates with his head held high… after putting his penalty in the back of the net.

I think it’s fair to say that Saka is Arsenal’s first-choice penalty taker, or at the very least, the one who decides who takes them.

That said, I wouldn’t assume Gyökeres has no chance of taking, but probably only 30% at most. The good news (or, really, the sad news) is that Gyökeres isn’t far from being handed a pity penalty, so that could happen the next time Arsenal win one.

Ah, the £60 million question. I think Gyökeres is as good as nailed on and an 80+ minute player until Kai Havertz returns. Of course, the issue is we don’t know when Havertz will be back, nor when he’ll be fully up to speed.

If I were to make an educated guess, I’d give Gyökeres three gameweeks of solid minutes before I begin to worry. We don’t know if Havertz will end up usurping him, but honestly, he’d fit Arsenal’s current setup pretty well.

Even if Gyökeres only gets three gameweeks of solid minutes, you’ve got these fixtures: CRY, bur, sun.

If Hodor were around right now, he’d be yelling at you to hold Gyökeres through these games. Arsenal and Gyökeres will get goals here, so the real question is: how many?

I’d be content holding Gyökeres until we can reasonably conclude that Havertz is hurting his FPL prospects. If you’re determined to sell him, I think JP² (João Pedro and Jean-Philippe Mateta) are decent alternatives.

Saka is obviously a good pick in isolation — a nailed-on penalty taker with historically impressive underlying data — but none of the other forward options strike me with much confidence, unless your goal is simply to free up money with someone like Calvert-Lewin (yes, I did just say Calvert-Lewin) or Igor Thiago.

It’s for this reason that I don’t think swapping Saka for Gyökeres is really worth using FTs on (yet), unless you have at least three FTs. While I’d rather have Saka, I think FTs and information—especially on Saka’s minutes, should we see fluctuation—are quite valuable at the moment, so I’d be happy to hold off on the move.

I feel similarly about selling Gyökeres to buy a second Arsenal defender (assuming you have both Gyökeres and Saka). I do think Arsenal’s defence is by far the best in the league and offers more reassurance than a comforting hug. I don’t think the disparity between someone like Saliba and a 4.5 warrants the FT use.