Mikel Arteta has thrown his support behind Viktor Gyokeres, insisting the striker will yet prove his worth for Arsenal despite a relatively subdued start to life in north London.
The Gunners invested £63.5 million to prise the Swede away from Sporting CP after an extraordinary spell in Portugal that yielded 97 goals in just 102 appearances but that explosive form has not fully translated to the Emirates so far.
Gyokeres has scored six times in 19 outings across all competitions, with his goals coming in only four matches and all of his Premier League strikes arriving against teams currently sitting in the bottom five.
Arteta, though, has played down the numbers and urged patience, pointing to a disrupted pre-season and the added weight of expectation that followed his big-money move.
The Arsenal boss explained that Gyokeres is still working his way back to full sharpness after a summer dominated by a training stand-off designed to force through his transfer.
Rather than concern, Arteta sees signs of a forward building towards his best form and believes the second half of the campaign will tell a very different story.
With Arsenal still chasing silverware on multiple fronts, the manager is confident Gyokeres’ goals will come, and that the investment will soon be justified.
“Well, I think the level of attention on him hasn’t changed since he signed to today,” Arteta said to reporters on Friday. “It’s normal. You know, everybody was so excited to bring him into the club.
“We did it. We brought a player with an incredible scoring record who had to adapt to the league. He had no pre-season.
“The first few weeks were difficult because physically he wasn’t in his best state and he’s a player that needs that, like any other player in this league, almost to perform at that level. Then he kicked on. I think he had a really good period and he got injured.
“And now he’s back. I saw a lot of positive things in the last two games that he’s done. I know we need to continue to tweak and understand him a little bit better in certain situations, and he needs to do the same. But that’s about time. We have full support for him.”
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