by It took 12 months and three transfer windows, but for Arsenal fans the apparently endless wait for a new striker is almost over. A year after the attempt and failure to hire Benjamin Sesko from RB Leipzig and six months after the purchase of Ollie Watkins from Aston Villa, Arsenal finally agreed to a deal for a center at the big money elite level.
The selected man is Viktor Gyokoker, the Swedish goal machine that has destroyed the defense throughout Portugal. Gyokeres travels to Arsenal after weeks after weeks after the conclusion of an agreement worth £ 55 million with around 9 million GBP.
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Arsenal’s search for strikers was exceptional in many ways. First, because of the time the club needed to accelerate their interest in Gyocokers. Second, due to the approach of sports director Andrea Berta of “Spinning Plates” for this transfer window.
And third, because the actual negotiations with Sporting were so afraid that Gyokeres’ father, according to reports in Portugal, was recently moved to tears after a deal. There were also strikes, allegations of blackmail and angry suggestions from broken pacts.
Arsenal fans can probably identify with the registered frustration of the Gyokokeres family, albeit less personally. For the followers of this club, the search for a No. 9 has become a collective obsession. Even the prime minister has burdened himself on this topic. In June, Sir Keir Starrer spoke for his co -owners of seasonal colleagues when he said: “A striker. This is the one who jumps out, and it is the case for a while. It is this striker role that we need.”
Why Arsenal Gyokoker selected via Sesko
Arsenal’s recruitment operation was led by Berta, which was largely appointed in March as sports director, this was effectively Berta’s personal project, and the Italian developed a complex strategy that was different in the last seasons than everything that Arsenal had previously seen.
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Berta spent the first part of this summer window with numerous deals for numerous strikers at the same time. This was not a case in which Arsenal identified a goal and then simply followed this player until an agreement was made. Sesko and Watkins stayed in the wrinkle for weeks, and Telegraph sport Understand that several other middle has also been contacted all over Europe.
The advantage of pricing different potential options is that Arsenal made a decision as informed as possible when choosing its strikers. Such an approach also has risks.
A few weeks ago, for example, Sesko and Gyokoker were confident that they were the preferred candidate. During his transfer game, Berta had to make sure that he did not play with the hearts of these men. Only sesko, who Telegraph sport In fact, understanding was the preferred goal for many who were involved in recruitment at Arsenal, can really say whether Berta has succeeded in this front.
For a long time it seemed as if Benjamin Sesko Arsenal’s primary center forward was – AP/Jan Woitas
Why did Arsenal ultimately decide to prioritize gyokokers, who was always Berta’s preferred choice? One factor is the price: Gyokoker was cheaper than sesco, sometimes because it is five years older.
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Another obvious factor for Arsenal’s decision is that the Swedish international made it absolutely clear how desperate he wanted to move. Gyokoker and his representatives were willing to make great efforts to enable this transfer, including the torch of their relationship with sport. Rightly or wrongly or incorrectly, Sesko at Leipzig would never have done the same thing.
The feeling that Gyokoker is interested in larger and better things has been underlined by his media appearances in the past few weeks. This summer he was the cover star of two magazines: France football (In which he said: “I’m at the table of the best strikers in the world”) and the Scandinavian edition of fashion. The timing of these things is rarely accidental.
On the Portuguese side, the drama began in early June, when it turned out that Gyokeres and his camp were angry that the agreement of an obvious gentleman was not respected. Gyokoker and his agent, Hasan Cetinkaya, believed that Sporting promised to sell him for £ 59 million last season. The President of Sporting, Frederico Varandas, did not share this view.
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The situation was made more complicated after Manchester City by departure in the middle of the season by Hugo Viana, the former sports director of Sporting. It was Viana, not Varandas who managed the relationship with the agents of the sports players.
In the middle of the suggestions in June that an angry Gyokoker had refused to ever represent Sporting again, Varandas made an extraordinary public explanation in which he said he would not bow to “blackmail and insults”. He also insisted that he would never accept a deal worth “60 plus 10” (£ 52 million plus £ 8.7 million on add-ons) for his top goal scorer.
Obviously, the relationship between player and club had dissolved. So it was not a real surprise that Gyokoker did not appear when the sporting first team returned to training before the season in the early this month. Sporting had actually given Gyokoker a longer break, but the feeling of the sweding of the betrayal was acute. There could be no back for him.
The player’s father “disturbed” through negotiations
Negotiations between the two clubs took painfully long to be completed. The talks have been in an advanced stage for almost three weeks, and the slow character of these discussions prevented that Arsenal completed a contract on time so that Gyokoker with the team flies through Asia to their pre-season tour.
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A kind of breakthrough was achieved when the agent had agreed to do without his cut. But even after the framework of a deal was agreed, the discussion about add-ons continued and further. It was so painful for those involved that the Portuguese outlet Mais Futebol revealed last week that Gyokeres’ father had become “emotionally disturbed” and feared that the transfer would collapse.
It should be said that sport has history in this regard. A few years ago, Tottenham Hotspur’s step to hire Pedro Porro from the Portuguese club almost apart, almost apart before it was suddenly revived. In January 2020, a similar situation occurred at Manchester United and Bruno Fernandes. Varandas, a decorated army captain, is obviously a hard negotiator.
In Portugal it was reported this weekend that United tried to kidnap Arsenal’s step for Gyokoker. It was ultimately irrelevant whether this was a comfortable “leak” for the printing of Arsenal or a sign of United’s legitimate interest. The news of Gyokeres and his people remained the same: he only wanted arsenal.
On Sunday it turned out that Sporting accelerated in talks to sign Almeria striker Luis Suarez. And then Arsenal Manager Mikel Arteta answered a question about Gyokoker on Monday morning by saying that he could not comment on a player who is not yet part of our group.
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Everything pointed out considerable progress, and so on Friday it proved on Friday, when a complete agreement was finally achieved and Gyoker granted permission to subject medical tests. Arsenal finally has her husband.
