Arsenal pick Gyokeres?

This is the first big bet from Andrea Berta and I have to say that I am nervous about it and I don't know if that is the right choice.

A resolution to Arsenal’s striker hunt looks to be coming into focus.

After going with a dual track approach on Benjamin Sesko and Viktor Gyokeres all summer long, with an Ollie Watkins stalking horse as a backup the process has boiled down to Arsenal seemingly choosing Gyokeres.

There have been a flurry of updates today and it was capped off with the very reliable David Ornstein of The Athletic reporting that Arsenal are in advanced talks with Sporting for him:

Arsenal are in advanced talks with Sporting CP over a deal to sign Viktor Gyokeres.

A move for the 27-year-old striker is not done as discussions continue over the transfer fee — but the situation is progressing towards a conclusion.

Personal terms are in place on a proposed five-year contract, the Sweden international having prioritised a switch to Arsenal for some time.

This is in light of news from Hand of Arsenal (always a bit weird to type up people who are anonymous online like that but his track record this season has been very solid, but ymmv):

For the last 2 weeks Marcel Schäfer (DoF) for RB Leipzig refused to negotiate lower than €90 million. The mission then became very clear. Arsenal now trying to close a deal for Viktor Gyökeres. Talks ongoing over the structure of the fee and add ons.

This seems to generally track the narrative that seems to have played out this summer where Sesko was the first choice at striker for Arsenal. The club was close to signing him last summer but Sesko decided that he wanted another year as the starter at RB Leipzig and signed a new contract that included a new higher release clause of €70m (£58m) that reportedly could fluctuate but after negotiations this summer and reporting now that release clause didn’t seem to be very iron clad or maybe it hasn’t been very well reported on how it could deviate from the base number.

I am disappointed about this development because Sesko was largely the player that I favored but I can’t blame the team for having a valuation and sticking too it and not wanting to move too far off of it. If Arsenal wanted a deal done in the region of £50m to £60m and Leipzig were not budging off of their £78m that’s nearly a 35% and £20m difference in valuation and that is hard to bridge.

I don’t envy the decision makers here having to make the call because Gyokeres at £50m to £60m isn’t exactly a cheap gamble either. This is a BIG bet from Andrea Berta who by reports was one of the people behind the push for the player compared to others at Arsenal that were not convinced by him and it is one of the more impactful decisions that Arsenal will have this summer.

We have written and talked about Gyokeres a bunch already and it would be good to distill things down here now.

No denying his Portuguese numbers

Gyokeres scored 39 goals in the Primeira Liga last season on his way to being the highest scoring player in any domestic league this season.

That is a pretty great data point to have and that will be the starting point for the bull case for him. The most important job of a striker is that he scores goals and he did that a lot last season.

This also isn’t just a one season wonder for him (even if last year was by far the biggest one) or just a result of him having a ton of penalties (he did have that with 12 last season and 17 total over the last two). He still leads with 51 non-penalty goals scored over the last two years in his domestic league.

He backs up the gaudy goal scoring numbers with excellent shooting volume, lots of touches in the box, good carrying and dribble numbers, and solid creative numbers for a striker.

Based just on his numbers in Portugal this is by far the best statistical forward in the world right now.

Looking at his numbers it is impressive as hell.

His shooting numbers are excellent, he’s got volume, plus quality chances, plus adding value with his accuracy and power.

This is a story that holds for his career too:

He has shown a solid track record of beating his xG and it is backed by his skill of shot placement and power which would make me think that this is actually a durable skill for him and not just noise.

His big finishing hot spots are exactly where you want your striker taking shots from as well, dominating the center of the penalty area.

His finishing looks strong across the board as well, when he gets solid looks at goal he does an excellent job of turning those chances into goals at a high rate.

If Arsenal fans are worried about the dreaded “Big Chances Missed” this is a player that generally has not had that struck him (he will still miss them because everyone does and getting big chances is better full stop).

One bit of a red flag here in the data ignoring level of competition (that will come below) is that he is not a good header of the ball. For a player that has his athletic traits and size (6-1½) he is poor in the air.

If scores at the rate he has previously with his feet people won’t care but it something that can’t be passed over and not mentioned when talking about the player.

This probably dovetails with his lack of heading ability but he is also not a threat on set plays for how prolific of a scorer he has been.

Outside of penalty kicks he has just 3 set play goals in his career from 20/21 to present. For Arsenal maybe there are better looks here for him but another one that’s a bit of a red flag.

For a striker, and a player that Arsenal would be wanting to come in and get a team that was missing open play goals and threat there is a lot of good news here.

How they translate to the Premier League however is open for debate

Now we get into what makes this a very tough transfer to get a read on.

The Portuguese League, like many leagues outside of the top two or three is one where teams at the top are very good but the quality beyond that drops off significantly.

Here is a graphical representation of this using Club Elo ratings comparing the Premier League, the Championship, and the Portuguese Premiera Liga.

The top teams in Portugal are quite strong, they back this up performing well in the Champions League generally and would be about on the edge of the European places in the Premier League. Once you start getting past the top 5 teams however, that quality of team drops off significantly past that and the teams are rated as below the level of the Championship.

This is a bit like when we see players kill it in Cups playing against teams from the Championship or League One or even in Europe playing against the minnows. It’s impressive and you can only play the people in front of you, but it can be a data point that you take with a grain of salt.

There are a few things that we can do to try and account for this but nothing is perfect here.

The first thing would be doing an adjustment for the strength of opponent and the differences in teams. I attempt this using Club Elo data and here is what Gyokeres’ data looks like after that:

That is a pretty large drop off and difference here. He goes from one of the statistically best players in the world to maybe something between good and very good.

This isn’t an easy task and this should be more of a ball parking exercise than something that is the gospel truth.

The next method would be only looking at his games against other strong teams. For this I have set the cut off of at an Elo rating of 1725 which is roughly the top 50 teams in Europe, this is also about where 17th place in the Premier League is cut off. I have included the last two seasons here because otherwise the sample size would be very small.

Compared to his overall numbers the drop off is pretty significant here.

His goal scoring this season has been beating up on lots of bad teams. Looking at the breakdown of goals scored in the Primeira Liga it looks like this:

• Goals vs the other top teams (top 3) - 1 (0 non-penalty)

• Goals vs the teams in 4th through 7th - 7 (6 non-penalty)

• Goals vs the bottom 11 - 31 (21 non-penalty)

He can only play against the teams on his schedule and he can’t control that the teams that he is playing against haven’t been very good, and he has destroyed them, but there is clearly room for doubt here.

Final thoughts for today

I can’t help but feel a bit mixed today on this news.

I thought that Sesko was the guy and I thought that he fit in with what the vision of the club was perfectly. It would also be a chance to sort of right the mistake (with hindsight) that they made with Alexander Isak.

Sesko is far from a certain thing because there is no such thing but he represented very good present talent with super star potential. His age was also perfect to be the rotation for, while able to play with and sometimes in the place of Kai Havertz for Arsenal.

It looks like baring a last-minute shift from Leipzig on his valuation that won’t be happening.

Gyokeres ends up as a bit of a weird middle ground. His age isn’t bad but he’s in the middle of his prime and there isn’t probably another level to go to here with him. He’s been great in his domestic league but only pretty good when he has come up against competition that is of the caliber of the Premier League.

If Arsenal wanted a win now option guys like Ollie Watkins or Victor Osimhen were there and probably guaranteed more floor while having similar or better upside. They came with other issues, Watkins maybe has less runway given he’s older and Osimhen has seemed to want a massive pay day so maybe that swayed the decision here.

It does seem that the price is going to be manageable but I am curious to see what sort of wages he will end up on because that will help shed some light on if this is a striker that they expect to be the number one guy (and I’d be nervous about that bet) or if he is more of a rotation option (more comfortable about that).

It is hard to read the future but I am coming from a starting point that this is not a player that I would be expecting to displace Kai Havertz from the starting position.

Let me know how you are feeling about this one.