{"id":664893,"date":"2026-02-06T16:22:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/?p=664893"},"modified":"2026-02-06T16:22:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:22:34","slug":"viktor-gyokeres-paul-merson-arsenal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2026\/02\/06\/viktor-gyokeres-paul-merson-arsenal\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Legend Names One Player the Gunners Need to Trust More"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arsenal have enjoyed an impressive season so far, sitting six points clear of Manchester City in the Premier League. They have made it to the Carabao Cup final, where they will play Manchester City, while they will also play against Wigan Athletic in the fourth round of the FA Cup on February 15. Mikel Arteta\u2019s team won all eight games in the Champions League group stage and are understandably one of the favourites for that competition. One of the their summer signings was Swedish striker Viktor Gyokeres, who came with a big reputation for scoring goals. His performances so far have been mixed, and Arsenal legend Paul Merson<\/span><\/a> has spoken about the Swede\u2019s form and that his teammates need to trust him more.<\/p>\n

Viktor Gyokeres’ First Season at Arsenal<\/h2>\n

Paul Merson Says ‘I Hope They Trust Him a Lot More’<\/span><\/h3>\n

Gyokeres came from Portugal after lighting up the Primeira Liga, where he was almost unplayable at times. His time in the Premier League since his \u00a364 million transfer<\/span><\/a>\u00a0has been mixed so far, and at the time of writing, he has 11 goals in 31 games in all competitions.<\/p>\n

While in Portugal, his ability to score with both feet and his variety of goals were most impressive. He always shows high energy throughout, which sees him often pick up the ball in wide areas before cutting in and scoring. This has been seen sparingly since his move to North London.<\/p>\n

Read More<\/b>: <\/span>Best Arsenal Players to Wear the Number 14 Jersey Ever<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

His ability to run in behind or drop short makes him a great outlet, but since joining Arsenal, he doesn\u2019t seem to be completely in sync with his teammates so far.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Merson addresses Gyokeres form<\/h3>\n
\n

Discussing Gyokeres\u2019 form, Merson said:<\/p>\n

“He did alright at Leeds last week, he held the line well and missed a chance that he took too long on. But that was his best game I saw him play, the other one that stands out is Burnley away. No disrespect to Leeds and Burnley, one is fifth-bottom, one is second-bottom. He needs more than that.<\/p>\n

“He does show, he makes good runs down the channel. Sometimes just put it down there for him, he may win a throw-in and that could give him a bit of confidence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“He touched the ball once in the first 25 minutes against Chelsea. I\u2019m 57 and I\u2019m touching the ball more than once.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“I watched a lot of Romelu Lukaku at Chelsea \u2013 and he wasn\u2019t looking for it. The ball would be down the left hand side and he would drift down the right, and wasn\u2019t looking to show.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read More<\/strong>: <\/span>Gabriel Jesus Returning: Arsenal\u2019s Tactical Savior Returns<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

“This lad does come up and show up. He\u2019s not hiding away. \u00a0But just get him into the game, feed him the ball and give him a little bit of confidence.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“If every professional footballer could do one thing, they\u2019d bottle up their confidence. If you have confidence, it\u2019s a completely different game. If he\u2019s not touching the ball, and the way the game is now with stats, stats, stats, you need to keep on giving him a couple of touches and feed him the ball.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“He\u2019s top scorer, but he\u2019s one ahead of own goals. I hope he does well. He\u2019s a hard-working, he doesn\u2019t down tools \u2013 but I hope they trust him a lot more.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Featured Image Credit<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

IMAGO \/ Uk Sports Pics Ltd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenal have enjoyed an impressive season so far, sitting six points clear of Manchester City in the Premier League. They have made it to the Carabao Cup final, where they will play Manchester City, while they will also play against Wigan Athletic in the fourth round of the FA Cup on February 15. Mikel Arteta\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4106,"featured_media":658239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,8,3],"tags":[3123,31697],"class_list":["post-664893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-paul-merson","tag-viktor-gyokeres"],"modified_by":"Ricky Carroll, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664893"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":664895,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664893\/revisions\/664895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}