Troy Deeney is confused by some of the revisionism around one Arsenal player since the Gunners’ win over Atletico Madrid on Tuesday.
Mikel Arteta’s side thrashed Atletico 4-0 at the Emirates in the Champions League, thanks to goals from Gabriel Magalhaes and Gabriel Martinelli, as well as a brace from Viktor Gyokeres.
The result sees the North Londoners move up to fourth in the European competition’s League Phase table, having won all three matches thus far.
One member of Arteta’s squad has been praised for his contribution to the victory over the Spanish outfit, but Deeney believes this praise has gone overboard.
Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty ImagesTroy Deeney says Viktor Gyokeres isn’t ‘elite’
Arsenal signed Gyokeres for £63 million in the summer.
The Swede has struggled in certain games for the Gunners and was in desperate need of a goal prior to the Atletico clash.
Having netted just three times in eleven appearances in a red and white shirt, the pressure was starting to grow on him to deliver.
Fortunately for Arteta and Arsenal, he did. Gyokeres scored twice against the La Liga giants, bundling the ball over the line on both occasions to cement the Gunners’ lead.
The 27-year-old has garnered plaudits for his performance, but Deeney doesn’t echo these sentiments. The former Watford striker insists that the narratives around the player shouldn’t change after these goals.
“Those goals come when they were two up first and foremost,” Deeney said on talkSPORT.
“So Atletico obviously have to go for it. More space opens up, obviously they score. Again, it’s really contradictory what I’m going to say, but it’s not, as a striker, any goal counts. Who cares? They’re not clinical finishes. They’re not ones where you go, ‘Oh my god, what a finisher.’ They scuff one in and one hit him. Fair enough. You come away with two.
“But we’re now four days removed from Saturday, when the inquest was, is he playing well, when I’m happy to defend that he’s actually playing well because he scored three in 10.
“So now he scuffs one in, and one hits him, and now he’s an elite striker again. It’s like, what are we doing? He’s not in the Haaland bracket. He’s not in the Harry Kane bracket. Like we’re not talking about a top, top-level striker.”
No one expects Viktor Gyokeres to be Harry Kane or Erling Haaland
While Deeney was likely deliberately using hyperbole to get his point across, his sentiment was very wide of the mark.
Arsenal didn’t sign Gyokeres for a fee that would suggest they expect him to be at the level of Erling Haaland or Harry Kane.
In 2025, £63 million for a striker is a relatively modest fee, and suggests that the Gunners merely wanted to add another useful attacking player to their cohort of forwards.
Nobody expects Gyokeres to be ‘elite’ and nobody is suggesting that he is because he scored twice against Atletico. Arsenal are merely happy that he found the back of the net for them in a big game.
He deserves credit for ending his drought and performing well, it’s as simple as that.