Jamie Carragher felt Arsenal summer signing Viktor Gyokeres must have been dropped and will have ended up ‘costing’ the Gunners the Premier League before his recent upturn in form.
Gyokeres endured an underwhelming begin to his Arsenal profession after being signed from Sporting for £64m, scoring just five league goals within the first-half of the season.
The Sweden international scored almost a goal a game for Portuguese giants Sporting but failed to copy that form in north London for title-chasing Arsenal.
Gyokeres has been way more productive because the turn of the Recent 12 months, nevertheless, contributing eight goals including a brace in Sunday’s emphatic north London derby win over Tottenham.
Carragher praised Gyokeres’ ‘mentality’ after the 4-1 thumping, which put Arsenal five points clear at the highest of the Premier League, and said Mikel Arteta deserved ‘credit’ for ‘sticking with’ his big-money summer signing.
The Liverpool legend admits he was once of the opinion Arsenal needed to drop Gyokeres and was ‘surprised’ Arteta continued showing faith within the 27-year-old former Manchester United goal.
‘The thing I like about Viktor Gyokeres is his mentality,’ Carragher told Sky Sports after Arsenal’s latest north London derby win. ‘I don’t think he’s a world-class striker or an incredible striker for Arsenal for the following five or years.
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‘But I absolutely love his mentality. There’s no insecurity with him, he just gets the ball and bangs it in, it’s Alan Shearer-like, that form of mentality.
‘As Gary Neville said on commentary, I believe that’s the very best we’ve seen Gyokeres play in an Arsenal shirt, it was a completely implausible finish.
‘He may very well be [vital] and what I’d say is here, is credit the manager. I felt they had to return away from Gyokeres and I believed at some stage it may cost a little them.
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‘However the manager has stuck by him week after week and the strength he showed on this game, it was very Alan Shearer-like.
‘We were taking a look at the strikers Arsenal had and I felt he was quite far down the pecking order and a number of times I used to be quite surprised that Gyokeres was still within the team.
‘But fair play to the manager because he’s kept him in and he’s repaid him in certainly one of Arsenal’s biggest games of the season.’
Arteta heaped praise on Gyokeres after the win over Tottenham, saying: ‘He was outstanding today. There have been glimmers of it every week but today, I believed he was implausible.’
On the victory as a complete and the title race, Arteta added: ‘Really glad, really proud about how we approached the sport.
‘The initiative and the standard we showed to return here and win the sport in the best way that we did.
‘That is the Premier League, it’s going to go all the best way needless to say. Ten games within the Premier League is a good distance.’
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