Nunez is a recent example we are particularly familiar with but my opinion on the standard of the Portuguese league goes back a lot further than that, I think it has only been won by teams outside the big 3 of Benfica, Porto and Sporting twice and the drop off in standard is quite severe so if you play for one of those leading teams there are a lot of stat padding games against far inferior opposition as it doesn’t have much depth.
At International level Gyökeres record is closer to 1 in 2 rather than just under a goal a game at Sporting - I expect he will score goals for Arsenal but I’m not convinced he is at that very top level needed to post Salah/Haaland level numbers.
I dont think that’s the case. It is more that he has failed to do anything of note anywhere else and so 2 seasons in portgual at 27 years of age is not enough to get excited about.
He had two pretty good seasons in the Championship. A step below for sure but enough to earn a pretty big, high value move.
He’s shown he’s more than capable of performing at that level and a CL level too. He wouldn’t be the first late bloomer and I’d probably have preferred them to get a project in Sesko than someone hitting their peak.
Comparisons with Nunez are a bit moot. Just because it’s the Portuguese league doesn’t make them comparable.
Comparisons and counting good or bad examples end at one point, because each career can be different. Some career pathways can be a bit special. Look at where Drogba was just before he ended up at Chelsea, with a quick and successful stop at Marseille. He was already 25-26. I don’t know too much about Gyokeres, will wait and see how it all looks on the pitch, if he does join Arsenal.
After seeing on the BBC live chat this morning that Rio Ferdinand had spoken about his doubts on Gyokeres making it in the Premier League back when he was being linked to Man U I would like to withdraw my previous comments along the same lines on principle to avoid any risk of being in agreement with that particular ‘pundit’
Kind of thing you post when you’ve just won the league and sign a quality player not when the player in question rejected us only for us to use Grav instead and win the title.
Good to see this getting called out - Liew gets a tick and a koala stamp (as a renowned Australian broadcaster would say):
*“We are courageous in the pursuit of progress.”
“We champion our community and each other.”
“We do the right thing (even when no one is looking).”
The values and culture of Arsenal Football Club, as proclaimed on the club’s careers website. Shall we generously call that half a point out of three? Certainly you would struggle to mark Arsenal too highly on courage or intrinsic goodliness right now. But the unhappy case of Thomas Partey illustrates the lengths to which they are willing to go to champion one of their own."
And they tried over an extended period to get him to extend. Any argument about a player under contract having a right to make a living until they are formally charged is negated by that.
