Summer 2025 Transfer Window: Page 191 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Summer 2025 Transfer Window

JazzG

Klaus Lets see if he can bench Havertz first....

Your views on Gyokeres are the only thing giving me hope! If we sign him I hope you're right!

CPM

That PSV comp is a great illustration of his weaknesses. He wants to play like a bully but does not have the top-line strength and speed to do so at the highest level (so unfortunately the Diego Costa comparisons are out the window). Not strong enough to hold up the ball consistently. Not great in the middle third of the pitch. When Havertz is fit he will start every big game over Gyökeres.

But he will be better when he gets the ball in dangerous positions in the final third. He is explosive and does these really effective rapid combination-actions with the ball to get space to shoot. In the box his desire can overcome his physical/technical limitations. I wish he were at all good in the air. But he’s only costing us £60m, for a bonafide scorer who can exploit low blocks and tired legs that will do.

JazzG

CPM Plenty of flaws to pick out of Sesko compilations as well but the biggest flaw with Sesko right now is he comes deep too often, if he stayed up the pitch I think he'd move up a level and that is what would happen with us.

Havertz aerial domination and hold up play is key for us, especially against teams who press us as he becomes our natural outlet.

Doc

JazzG

Pretty sure that's the system RB play. 2 up top with home more as a second striker or at least alternating.

CPM

JazzG Right, but not all teams will press us. When we have total control of possession and are trying to break down a sitting defense (which now happens often in the Prem), we don’t need Havertz’s hold up play.

Maybe the best thing you can say about signing Gyökeres is that he and Kai have very complementary skillsets — it will be a matter of horses for courses.

Kel Varnsen

JazzG

We are very rarely pressed, and our need for a long ball outlet is minimal. Even against psg, we dominated possession and position for most of both games.

JazzG

Burnwinter He's probably right, this isn't to disrespect Gyokeres but even our own fanbase massively underrate Havertz.

Doc They play with Openda and usually Sesko will drop deeper with Openda playing higher up.

CPM Having options isn't a bad thing.

Pepe LeFrits Look below as to why a lot aren't overly impressed with scoring in that league.

Mirth Lets hope so, he'll be up against similar physical and better defenders in the PL.

Mirth

JazzG just FYI that PSV match does deserve additional context in that Gyokeres and the Sporting players struggled a fair amount and pretty much acknowledged that it was a below par performance for various reasons. Which is to say that Gyokeres didn’t come off the pitch feeling like he put in a typical performance either.

Burnwinter

Mirth Big fan of his strategy in getting agreements with multiple players and getting them to put pressure on the clubs rather than our previous approach of moving sequentially.

Have we ever done this with purpose before? It has been elegant work in this instance, even though it's made for a couple of months of rather empty debates.

flobaba

Indeed, and there are obviously holes in his game. There's no denying that.

He's not great with his back to goal or aerially, and his hold up play needs work. Like Henry, he is a natural winger who was converted into a striker to maximize his other strengths (name-dropped Henry there just to work Don P's nerves 🙂 ). We don't criticize the king because he wasn't prolific with headers and couldn't control a 70 yard goal kick on his chest like Drogba.

Ideally we play to his strengths, and minimize the need for him to have to plough the lone furrow upfront. Get him into and around the box and let him do his thing. And yep, horses for courses. If we are in games where we have to go long often, get Havertz and Merino on to support or replace him.

We have options now. That's a very good thing.

RowJimmy

flobaba
Havertz will start, Gyokeres will be the one coming on when we're chasing the game. (Would also be true of Sesko - neither of them will bench Havertz.)

Gazza M

that PSV comp thats doing the rounds seems to be widely acknowledged as one of his worst in a sporting shirt. that's about as bad as we can expect him to be, but there are a bunch of other match comps where he looks on point.

that little cameo against us when he spun gabriel and outpaced saliba to get a shot away makes me feel OK about him physically adapting to English football.

MistaT

RowJimmy — I won’t be surprised to see Gyokeres starting games in August and September.

Havertz will have set backs and hesitancy as he recovers from surgery.

Rohit

The best players have poor games. What is the point of finding one match and pointing to it as evidence of him not being the right player for us? I am quite confident that not only will he score goals for us, he will also be a multiplier, he will make his teammates better. I was fortunate enough to have watched him against us in Lisbon. He was isolated up front, huge gap between him and the midfield, but he kept running the channels without any support even when the game was finished. He has that hunger to score goals which is the most important facet. I remember arguing with my brother when we signed Jesus. We both agreed that he will improve the team but we disagreed that we will see an increased desire from Jesus to score more goals.

Big Willie

Yeah, the disappointment in Gyok confuses me a little but I also understand it if people don't think he's good enough and that the Portuguese league isn't the barometer. However compared to all the others that did well in Portugal, he destroyed attacking stats in like no one before him has. That has me thinking there's more to him than just beating up on farmers (which by the way we need to do better against anyways).

Even discounting whether he can translate what he does there here, if you just look at his skillset you see a lot of positives. Great shooting with both feet. Not just finesse either, like foot through the ball rockets from close range that doesn't give the keeper a chance even if he moves the right way. He's decently quick and will add pace to our side which we so dearly lack. His hunger to get onto the end of things in the box will see us score a bumch more from those Martinelli and Saka crosses which flash across the goal with no one around.

On top of that his desire to get in behind and drift wide will either take a man or two with him to free up the others around him, or he'll help overload the left side allowing space for Martinelli and Rice to get into the box. Put it this way, if we could get Merino scoring a bunch of goals for us with his supertanker turning radius, I'm sure Gyok won't stuggle go get on the scoresheet.

If we continue to play like we do with Havertz and Merino we may not fully utilize him and free the atta k but if we tweak our game, play a bit faster and more direct (which I'm hoping Zubi can give us because many are convinced he can) then I can see our whole attack move up a level, including Martinelli, Saka and Odegaard. Honestly feel like this is a great statement of intent from us. I'm suoer excited about him.

Don Pacifico

flobaba price is one thing but you're talking about Gyokeres as if he's a sure thing. In my eyes, I'd expect Watkins to contribute the same amount in our setup but for less the price.

Big Willie Great shooting with both feet. Not just finesse either, like foot through the ball rockets from close range that doesn't give the keeper a chance even if he moves the right way.

Watch a shot compilation of his and you may feel differently about that. Definitely power over precision with a lot of shots going straight at the 'keeper.

Burnwinter

If you run the numbers on Gyökeres, factoring in the sort of statistical decline players coming to England from Portugal usually experience, and making sure to exclude pens, and imagining him battering at low blocks a lot of the time, it still looks like he'd be expected to be worth 15–25 non-penalty league goals if he were to play a full season.

Picture that output instead as competition to Havertz and a distraction from Saka, Ødegaard and Gabi, and it does seem likely to get us back towards the 90 or so goals we will need to win the league.

HomeSteak

Don Pacifico but they already said no to a bid of 60 million pounds from us in the winter. I'm not arguing he would not be good, just saying that in terms of money, it would be probably the same sun.

flobaba

Don Pacifico but you're talking about Gyokeres as if he's a sure thing.

At this level, very few players available can be considered as "a sure thing". Gyokeres may not be either, but he's the closest thing. The defending and goal keeping may not be the same standard in Portugal, but the goal size is. And he knows how to find the goal, and has done so at an unprecedented clip for the past 2 seasons. If he somehow flops badly, it would be unfortunate, but no one would be able to say we didn't give ourselves the best chance. Plus as many have observed, his mentality is elite - let's not discount that attribute. If Havertz could turn out okay ish for us, I'm confident this guy will find a way to step up to the plate.

Burnwinter

Cannon Stats is of the opinion he won't start over Havertz, but I'd assume it's a case of "now we've got two number 9s", it's just that's a healthy situation when you're talking about strikers not keepers.

Don Pacifico

HomeSteak fair do, must have misremembered that then. Would still give him a slight edge because he's PL proven but not much in it for me.

awooga83

The decision for whoever we go for has risk. I do worry about how he does because the teams he was able to excel against are poor and he scored a decent number of pens. The main reason for my preference is Sesko is younger so has more time to develop and if it doesn't work out we can probably still cash out without total loss and he could be a main stay for longer.

HomeSteak

Was looking at the most expensive players from Portugal. Plenty of flops

Qwiss

HomeSteak plenty of successes too. In fact you could do the exact same thing for the German league and discount Sesko or even Wirtz because of it. One of the key differences here is that Gyokeres has been doing it for 2 seasons, a lot of those had one big season and were snapped up, others were young and gambles on potential. In fact if you look at the 2 who were established players at 25 when they moved both have been huge successes.

Also this thing of looking at one PSV match and concluding a whole load about Gyokeres from it is insane. There are 3 or 4 games from last season where you can do that to Havertz and he looks even worse. There were loads of games last season where Haaland looked utterly useless.

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