Viktor Gyokeres is ready to quit Arsenal and push for a January exit, according to a new report, after a season spent watching from the bench while Kai Havertz leads the line for Mikel Arteta.
No starts, 56 minutes
The numbers explain the frustration. As reported by TEAMtalk, the Sweden international has failed to start a single Premier League match this season, and SPORTbible put his total league minutes at just 56. That is a startling fall for a striker signed from Sporting CP for more than £60 million in 2025.
Gyokeres is not arriving at this decision after a poor year. He scored 21 goals in all competitions last season, 14 of them in the Premier League, as Arsenal won the title and reached the Champions League final. Strikers who deliver those numbers do not expect to become spectators the following autumn.
The Alvarez shadow
The second grievance is about what Arsenal did — and are still trying to do — in the transfer market. The club's long pursuit of Atletico Madrid forward Julian Alvarez over the summer raised serious questions in the Gyokeres camp about his long-term place in north London.
Alvarez made clear he wanted Barcelona, and Atletico's chief executive insisted the club would never sell their prized asset to the Catalan side. But Arsenal's interest has not gone away, and every fresh link tells Gyokeres the same story: the club are still shopping for his replacement. Little wonder, then, that this latest report is the reverse of the stay decision BTFW covered earlier this month — the mood around the player has clearly hardened.
Interest across Europe
TEAMtalk report that intermediaries are already assessing prospective landing spots ahead of January. Atletico Madrid remain interested — a move that would add a certain symmetry if Alvarez travels the other way — while clubs in the Premier League, Italy and Germany are also said to be monitoring the situation.
Crucially, the same reporting suggests Arsenal could be prepared to let him leave, because the club still want to bring in another forward. A separation that suits both sides is the easiest kind to complete in a short January window.
There is a financial reality underneath the stand-off, too. A 28-year-old striker with 21 goals in his most recent full season does not lose his market value by sitting on a bench for three months — but he will if the benching stretches to a full year. Selling in January, with several leagues interested and Alvarez still the dream target, protects the fee Arsenal can demand and funds the very signing that has unsettled him. Waiting until the summer helps nobody: not the player, not the balance sheet, and not a dressing room that can see one of its biggest earners being managed out in public.
What happens next
Arteta was asked about Gyokeres' confidence at his press conference on Friday and defended the striker, suggesting his team-mates have not been finding him in the right areas. The manager's immediate test comes on Sunday, when Arsenal travel to Nottingham Forest — a fixture previewed in our look at the returns of Zubimendi, Hincapie and Saliba for the Forest trip. A start there would be the simplest way to calm this story down. Another afternoon on the bench will do the opposite.
For Sweden, meanwhile, there is no debate at all: Gyokeres scored four goals during the recent Nations League international break. The goals have not dried up. The minutes have.
Beyond the Final Whistle
Beyond the Final Whistle: Arsenal spent more than £60 million on the most feared penalty-box striker in Europe, won a title with his goals, and are now in danger of losing him because they kept looking over his shoulder. If a club does not trust its £60 million striker to start a league game by mid-October, the honest move is to sell him in January and back the replacement properly — the worst outcome is a resentful star, a distracted dressing room and a title defence undermined from within. Should Arsenal sell Gyokeres in January, or should Arteta start him and prove the Alvarez chase is over? Tell us in the comments.
