Former Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur manager José Mourinho has expressed doubt over whether Viktor Gyökeres will be a success in the Premier League once an imminent €73.5 million (£63.7 million, $86.2 million) transfer to Arsenal is complete.
Gyökeres has been one of the most talked about striker in Europe in recent months due to his record of 97 goals in 102 appearance since joining Sporting CP in 2023.
The Swede will shortly become the No. 9 that Arsenal have been desperately short of in three failed Premier League title challenges. But there are still valid doubts, with Gyökeres unproven at top-flight level outside Portugal and imports from the Liga Portugal not always successful.
“He’s a great player, I have no doubt,” Mourinho told .
“But Sporting had a way of playing very much around him, very adapted. I don’t know what [sporting director] Hugo Viana and Ruben [Amorim] initially thought; he’s a player with great potential. But in England, he’ll play against stronger teams, better players.”
Although the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Díaz, Rúben Dias and Bruno Fernandes have thrived in English football after making the switch from Portugal, Darwin Núñez is the most recent high profile arrival—in a similar mould to Gyökeres as a prolific striker—and struggled.
Jackson Martínez (Atlético Madrid), Bas Dost (Eintracht Frankfurt) and Carlos Vinícius (Tottenham Hotspur) are other examples of strikers who have failed to reproduce Liga Portugal numbers.
