Mikel Arteta has told Viktor Gyokeres he must be able to deal with the pressure of not scoring for Arsenal following the striker’s alarming six-match streak without a goal.
Gyokeres scored 97 times across 102 matches for Sporting, but he heads into Arsenal’s fixture against Fulham on Saturday with just three goals for his new club.
The Sweden international also failed to find the back of the net during the recent international break to make it eight games in all since he last scored – in Arsenal’s 3-0 win against Nottingham Forest on September 13.
Gyokeres’ other two strikes for Arsenal arrived in their first home match of the season against Leeds, meaning he has scored in just two of his 14 appearances for club and country this season.
And Arteta said: “I told him before the first meeting, I said, ‘the nine that I want is a nine that when he doesn’t score for six or eight games, he can handle that. If not, you have to go somewhere else because the expectation is going to be there’.
“So, if you put on a nine shirt for Arsenal, you have to be able to say, ‘OK, six games, if I don’t score, I’m a different player? I start to act in a different way?’. No, I want much more of the same of what he’s doing.
“You see the history of the number nines. You’re going to have moments like this. He brings so much to the team. He creates space and solutions to a lot of the players around him. And with the talent that we have in the team, I’m sure that everybody, him included, will benefit from that.”
With Kai Havertz on the sidelines following a knee operation, Gyokeres will lead the line for Arsenal at Fulham.
However, injury-hit captain Martin Odegaard is out for at least the next month afer he sustained medial collateral ligament
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