Mikel Arteta tried to suppress a grin but eventually the smile gave him away. What had he changed, tactically, to get Arsenal into their first Champions League final in 20 years? Would it be fair to say, Mikel, that your team is now moving the ball more quickly up the field to find striker Viktor Gyokeres?
Arteta regained himself, shrugged, and just said he was always trying to improve.
The Arsenal boss keeping things close to his chest, who would have thought it. But a clear pattern is emerging.
Gyokeres, the much-maligned £55million summer signing, embodied everything about Arsenal’s victory over Atletico Madrid.
He bullied and bashed and bulldozed the Spanish side’s defenders. He ran the channels, he chased lost causes, he made run after run after run in behind the back line.
He’s done that a lot recently but, now, Arsenal are starting to find him more frequently and more quickly.
Viktor Gyokeres held the ball up superbly at the Emirates on Tuesday night as Arsenal beat Atletico Madrid to reach the Champions League final
Ahead of the game, Daily Mail Sport showed how Eberechi Eze had looked to play Gyokeres in quickly in the build-up to Arsenal’s second goal against Fulham at the weekend. Just before half-time on Tuesday night, Arsenal did it again.
This time it was William Saliba who spotted Gyokeres’ run and slipped the ball into his path. A slight deflection from the sprawling defender took him wide but Gyokeres crossed to Leandro Trossard whose parried shot fell at the feet of Bukayo Saka.
Arsenal’s Eberechi Eze played the ball forwards, quickly, into the path of Viktor Gyokeres for the Gunners’ second goal against Fulham at the weekend
And William Saliba repeated the trick on Tuesday night against Atletico Madrid, sending Gyokeres away in a move that led to Bukayo Saka’s winning goal
Gyokeres worked tirelessly. He ran 6.56 miles, the most of any Arsenal player all night.
His touch map (below) shows how he frequently held the ball up in the channels, where he constantly shrugged off defenders, drew fouls or brought his team-mates into play.
Gyokeres worked tirelessly – and his touch map reveals how frequently he held the ball up in the channels
The Sweden international received passes on 20 occasions at the Emirates, the third-most of any Champions League game he’s played this season. In only two Premier League games all season has he received more.
And you can see from the map of them (below), how quickly and from how deep, Arsenal looked to find their No9. It was goalkeeper David Raya who picked him out most often, as the Gunners took a direct approach to rattle Atletico Madrid.
Arsenal looked to find Gyokeres quickly and from deep, rather than working the ball up the pitch slowly and methodically
Arsenal fans wanted to see it even more. There was a moment just after the hour mark when Declan Rice carried the ball out from defence towards the right touchline and Gyokeres made an arcing run in behind up ahead of him, but instead of trying to pick him out, Rice turned back and knocked it inside and backwards to Martin Odegaard.
You could hear the groans from the Arsenal supporters, so much so that Rice even turned around to the fans behind him and pushed his palms to the floor to tell them to calm down.
Gyokeres makes another run, in behind the Atletico defence, but Declan Rice turns down the option to make the pass
Rice urges the crowd to keep calm after popping the ball off to Martin Odegaard instead
That has happened all too often this season. Gyokeres’ strength is using his pace and strength to stretch defences, to exploit any space left in behind. It’s just that style of play has for a long time been alien to how Arsenal like to play. But that appears to be changing.
Ask not what Gyokeres can do for you, to paraphrase John F Kennedy, ask what you can do for Gyokeres.
What was interesting is that not everyone thought Gyokeres had been so impressive.
Modern football can, at times, be a slave to the numbers. The rise of football analytics in recent years has led us all to believe that if you collect enough data, and do enough sums, you can find concrete answers within a complex game. Its critics cry that football is played on grass, not on a spreadsheet, even if, after all, that data is just totting down the very things that happen in front of eyes.
Rarely, though, has that divide felt so stark as in the Gyokeres’ performance. It was an odd surprise and a conundrum to then see him rated so poorly on many high-profile football sites that use data to give players a score out of 10.
Sofascore, for example, gave Gyokeres 5.9, comfortably the worst of Arsenal’s starters. WhoScored the same at a slightly lower 5.8 and FotMob even worse at 5.7.
If you go by just the numbers, Gyokeres completed just half of his 12 passes. He, officially, lost possession 18 times from his 36 touches. He apparently won just four of his 15 duels on the ground or in the air. It didn’t feel that way to look at it. He ballooned two shots over the bar, including one huge chance from a sublime Piero Hincapie cross.
Anyone who didn’t watch the game, would think he had a shocker. Let alone fail to realise he was arguably Arsenal’s best player on the night.
Because those numbers don’t include so much of the context that made Gyokeres’ performance so crucial to Arsenal’s win. Some things, perhaps, you do need to see with your own eyes.
Some of Gyokeres’ statistics from the win over Atletico don’t convey how well he truly played
Arsenal’s players congratulate Gyokeres for his sterling efforts at the final whistle at the Emirates
Just ask Atletico’s centre-halves. He bullied them all night and never stopped. After 80 minutes, he backed into Marc Pubill, turned him, then had his shirt hauled off his back. With 88 minutes on the clock, as Arsenal hooked a long clearance upfield, Gyokeres chased it all the way back to the goalkeeper.
And again, in stoppage time, Gyokeres backed into Pubill and won another foul. Myles Lewis-Skelly, subbed off after a fine night of his own, charged forwards from the dugout to applaud. More precious seconds ticking away.
‘Oh, he was immense,’ said Arteta. ‘You could see the reaction of the crowd every time he was holding the ball. His work-rate for what he’s giving the team is just incredible. He is the first one to set the tone, the rhythm, and the habits he shows when we don’t have the ball.’
Gyokeres deserves his credit. Yes, his first touch sometimes lets him down. Yes, his finishing touch might go awry but he has notched 21 goals in his debut season in a team that, until now, have rarely committed to his strengths. Robin van Persie didn’t manage 20 in his first season. Thierry Henry and Ian Wright both mustered 26 in theirs.
Now he’s in this kind of form, with his team-mates choosing to find him, you wouldn’t count against him getting even closer. If he does, Gyokeres might just secure a Champions League and Premier League title for Arsenal along the way.
