Can Gyokeres Translate Portugal Form To Premier League?

“I don’t think he’s the guy,” Rio Ferdinand says of Viktor Gyokeres.

“I’ve watched him probably three times really, really closely. And three times I’ve gone: ‘He ain’t getting that opportunity in the Prem.'”

Sweden striker Gyokeres, 27, has just completed a move worth up to £64m from Sporting to Arsenal.

Gyokeres has scored a phenomenal 97 goals in 102 appearances for the Portuguese club, and contributed 26 assists.

He averaged more than a goal per game last season, with 54 in 52 appearances.

But when he was being linked with Manchester United, Ferdinand said he was not convinced Gyokeres was a good fit for a team in England’s top flight.

The six-time Premier League winner, speaking on his Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast, asked: “Is there enough – after he’s physically matched – to get him a goal?”

However, Bjorn Hamberg, Gyokeres’ former assistant coach at Brighton and fellow Swede, tells BBC Sport: “He has got the physicality for sure.”

Arsenal were one of numerous top clubs linked with the former Brighton player after an outstanding couple of seasons with Sporting, where he played under Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim.

In addition to his 39 goals in Portugal’s Primeira Liga in 2024-25, Gyokeres helped himself to another six in the Champions League – including a hat-trick against Manchester City.

He has gone from leaving Brighton without playing a single minute of Premier League football to becoming one of Europe’s most prolific marksmen – via loan spells in the Championship at Swansea and Coventry, and in Germany with St Pauli.

But how have other players fared when moving from Portugal to England? And how will Gyokeres compare?

Do Portuguese league forwards usually succeed in England?

There is no doubt about the most successful import from the Primeira Liga – Cristiano Ronaldo, who also came from Sporting.

The 18-year-old, then a winger, joined Manchester United for £12.24m in August 2003.

He went on to score 118 goals in 292 appearances for United – with 103 of those in the Premier League.

He won three Premier League titles, the Champions League and a Ballon d’Or before a world-record £80m move to Real Madrid.

The next most prolific player to make the move from Portugal to England was also a Sporting to United signing – Bruno Fernandes.

The now United captain has scored 62 goals in 195 Premier League appearances – with a total of 98 goals in 290 games for the club – following his January 2020 move for a fee of £47m, rising to £67.7m.

In between those two, Nani also made the Sporting to United move in 2007 and netted 25 times in England.

Looking at out-and-out strikers, Mexico forward Raul Jimenez has scored 59 Premier League goals for Wolves and Fulham.

He joined Wolves from Benfica for a then club-record £30m in 2019 after a successful loan spell.

But for every Ronaldo, there is a Mario Jardel. The Brazilian won the Golden Boot five times in Portugal and netted 179 goals in 176 games in the country’s top flight.

“His goals-per-game ratio is second to none anywhere in the world. We have found a striker who is going to score goals for us on a regular basis,” said Bolton manager Sam Allardyce when they signed him in August 2003.

Aged 29, he only made seven substitute appearances in the Premier League, with his only three goals for the club coming in the League Cup.

Allardyce would go on to call him the worst player he ever managed.

Jardel was the first Portuguese league top scorer to move to the Premier League – with Gyokeres the most recent – and there were three in between.

Benni McCarthy top scored with Porto in 2003-04 and two years later joined Blackburn Rovers.

In his first season with Rovers he scored 18 Premier League goals and was only two behind Golden Boot winner Didier Drogba.

He would score 37 league goals in 109 games for Blackburn – and none in 11 for West Ham.

Carlos Vinicius and Darwin Nunez are the other players to win recent Portuguese Golden Boots – both with Benfica – before less-than-prolific spells in England.

Vinicius joined Tottenham on loan in 2020 and then Fulham permanently in 2022 – and has scored a combined eight goals in 53 Premier League matches.

Nunez, meanwhile, has netted 25 goals in 95 league games for Liverpool since his £64m move three years ago.

Will Gyokeres flourish in a tougher league?
Take a glance at the list of leading goalscorers in Europe’s top leagues in 2024-25 and the usual suspects are there.

Real Madrid’s Kylian Mbappe managed 31 in his debut season in La Liga, Mohamed Salah contributed 29 goals as Liverpool claimed the Premier League crown, while Robert Lewandowski finished on 27 during Barcelona’s title-winning season – one more than England captain Harry Kane’s tally for Bayern Munich.

Gyokeres, who is 6ft 2in, managed 39, though the Primeira Liga is not considered one of the top five leagues in Europe.

The question is whether he can be prolific in a stronger league. He has just turned 27 and is yet to play in Europe’s top five divisions – hence Ferdinand’s comments.

It is perhaps worth noting 35% of his goals in 2024-25 came from penalties, as he successfully converted all 19 of his spot-kicks.

There is little denying that Gyokeres is a goalscorer, but will he be such a success against elite-level defences?

“Obviously with Arsenal’s front players there’s going to be competition,” says Hamberg.

“I think he’s committed to let go again and obviously he understands that Arsenal will be another step up in the ladder.

“At the same time, in his last few seasons, especially in the Champions League, you can see he is probably more prepared than ever to take that challenge on.

“He improves every year and normally stays fit. He’s just one of those players who is good around the box, a good finisher, but he’s also quite strong in transition and in big spaces.

“So he’s quite versatile in that sense and I think that’s a really big thing in the Premier League.”

Gyokeres has previous in England

Gyokeres has already played for a Premier League club.

Having failed to make the grade, Brighton allowed him to join Coventry for a small fee in July 2021 after an unspectacular return of three goals in 19 Championship appearances during a loan spell with the Sky Blues.

Two years later, he went to Sporting for £20.5m after scoring 38 times in 91 league games for Coventry across the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.

While in Lisbon, Gyokeres has scaled new heights and also played on the international stage as part of an exciting attacking line-up for Sweden, alongside Newcastle’s Alexander Isak and Tottenham’s Dejan Kulusevski.

Gyokeres scored nine goals in six games for his country – including four in one match against Azerbaijan – in the 2024-25 Nations League.

But it is not just his goals that have earned him attention.

Gyokeres is known for his intelligent movement and intense work-rate, and his blend of physical strength, technical skill and tactical awareness have earned admiring glances from clubs.

He is a creator as well as a goalscorer, with a lot of his chance creation coming from his love of running with the ball.

“When we had him, we had Glenn Murray who had scored double figures the season before, and we signed Neal Maupay from Brentford,” says Hamberg, who was Graham Potter’s assistant at several clubs including Brighton.

“So then Viktor was like the third or fourth [choice]. He would still play games for us in the Carabao Cup.

“From our point of view we were happy with him to have a support role being young, and be ready to find an opportunity.

“But as a person, when he has his mind on something he usually goes all-in for that.

“And then he really pushed to get out on loan because he has just had a mindset of ‘if he plays he’s going to do well’.”

‘He always had the idea to be a top player’
Gyokeres’ unique goal celebration is inspired by Bane, the villain from the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises, and involves him crossing his fingers over his mouth, mimicking a mask

Gyokeres’ former team-mates and coaches remember a young boy who cried when he lost. They talk about a “stubborn kid” who was “wild, really aggressive” and would occasionally come to blows with team-mates.

There are stories about Gyokeres’ single-mindedness, focus and drive.

David Eklund, academy scout at his first senior club Brommapojkarna, tells BBC Sport: “He was never a superstar like Dejan Kulusevski. But he scored goals. That’s it.

“He had a strong mentality but he’s a really nice guy. He always worked hard and had the idea of being a top player, training every day. He wanted to prove people wrong.”

Dennis Lawrence, who was part of Mark Robins’ backroom staff at Coventry when Gyokeres was there, says: “He’s got that ability to focus on and achieve anything he wants.”

Hamberg, who was assistant manager when Gyokeres was at Brighton and remembers the young striker pushing for a loan move because he felt he was not getting enough minutes, adds: “What I like with him is that he’s quite stubborn.

“His mindset is really good. He doesn’t just sit down and wait for something to happen. He really wants to grab it himself. He trains how he plays, he’s just a hard-working person that is ready to put a shift in. When it goes bad he can always rely on his work ethic.”

Bbc.com