Viktor Gyökeres has scored 86 goals in two seasons for Sporting CP, but there’s more to the Swedish striker than just finding the net. We delve into his data.
Brighton & Hove Albion have proven they have a real eye for talent in recent years.
Alexis Mac Allister, Moisés Caicedo, Kaoru Mitoma, Carlos Baleba… Viktor Gyökeres?
Yes, for those unaware, Europe’s most-prolific striker was once on the books at Brighton after they signed him from Swedish side IF Brommapojkarna. You’d be forgiven for not realising, though, as Gyökeres didn’t play a single minute of Premier League football for the Seagulls, making just eight appearances in cup competitions.
Loan spells with St. Pauli and Swansea City didn’t exactly hint at what was to come either, while he only managed three goals in 19 Championship appearances for Coventry City in a six-month loan spell up to the end of the 2020-21 season.
However, Coventry still decided to make the move from Brighton permanent, and it’s fair to say it paid off. Gyökeres scored 38 goals in 94 Championship games for the Sky Blues across the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, earning admiring glances from across Europe.
Despite links to the Premier League, Gyökeres joined Sporting CP for a reported fee of around £20 million and didn’t look back; he only looked between his two thumbs as he regularly held his hands up to his face in his familiar goal celebration as he scored again, and again, and again.
His first campaign in Lisbon saw Gyökeres score a mighty 43 goals in 50 games in all competitions, and he has followed that up with another supreme season. His penalty in Thursday’s Taça de Portugal semi-final first-leg victory over Rio Ave saw him match last season’s total after just 43 games.
As a result, there have inevitably been links with a move to one of Europe’s giants, including several Premier League clubs, with Arsenal the latest to have been credited with an interest in Gyökeres.
So, just how good is the Sweden international, and is he more than just goals?
Gyökeres has the most goals in Europe’s top 10 leagues this season (30). Granted, 12 of his Primeira Liga strikes have been penalties, but even his total of 18 non-penalty goals is three more than anyone else has managed in the competition when including spot kicks (Porto’s Samu Aghehowa – 15).
It’s already one more goal than his impressive debut campaign, when Gyökeres scored 29 Primeira Liga goals in 33 appearances. He has attempted 109 shots in the league this season, at least 27 more than anyone else, and has a shot conversion rate of 27.5%. For comparison, in the Premier League this season, Mohamed Salah has a shot conversion rate of 25.2%, while Erling Haaland’s is 20.6%. The only two Premier League players to boast a better conversion rate (minimum 10 total shots) are Chris Wood (34.0%) and compatriot Alexander Isak (27.8%).
Some might question whether scoring goals in Portugal’s top flight necessarily means he can do it on any stage – which we’ll come to shortly – though the former Coventry striker did score six goals in seven UEFA Champions League matches this season. Only four players scored more in the 2024-25 league phase.
That included a hat-trick against Manchester City in a 4-1 victory at the José Alvalade Stadium in November, a night where it seemed Gyökeres convinced many that he is the real deal.
He has also performed on the international stage as part of an exciting attacking lineup alongside Isak and Dejan Kulusevski, with Gyökeres scoring nine goals in six games for Sweden in the 2024-25 UEFA Nations League.
At 6-foot-2 and with broad shoulders, Gyökeres looks almost like a throwback striker; a physical presence who can bulldoze his way to goal and shake off defenders in the process. While that’s not an entirely inaccurate description, it also does him a bit of a disservice when it comes to his all-round game.
Gyökeres is a creator as well as a goalscorer. He has carved out the most chances from open play in the Primeira Liga this season (51) and has six assists, with only four players having more. He also has six secondary assists to his name – having played the pass to the player who assisted a goal – which is the most in the Primeira Liga this term and speaks to effective use of the ball in dangerous areas.
A lot of his chance creation comes from his love of running with the ball. Only two players in Portugal’s top flight have attempted more than his 103 dribbles this season, and he also ranks third for long progressive carries (107) – carrying the ball at least 10 metres upfield – behind a couple of Benfica defenders (Nicolás Otamendi – 114, Álvaro Carreras – 108), who operate in less congested areas of the pitch.
Only five players have a longer total carry distance in the Primeira Liga than Gyökeres (3,843 metres), while among those to have attempted at least 200 carries, just two have a longer average distance per carry than his 13.0m. In other words, once he starts running with the ball, he can take some stopping.
And he often makes it count for something; only teammate Francisco Trincão (26) has recorded more chance-creating carries than Gyökeres (22), with no-one else in the league managing more than 14.
Gyökeres likes to lay the ball off to others as well, having done so 47 times this season, at least 14 more than anyone else in the Primeira Liga, and he’s also attempted 13 pull backs, at least six more than anyone else.
Those pull backs often come from his dribbles down the left, which is a particular forte. Although Gyökeres is deployed as a striker, he slightly favours drifting out to the left to attack defences, and as you can see from his heat map below, takes a lot of his touches in the left side of the opposition’s penalty area.
He doesn’t shirk his responsibilities off the ball either, winning possession in the final third more times than any other player in the Primeira Liga this season (26).
However, despite all that, we must address the elephant in the room; can a player who has plundered goals in Portugal do the same in one of Europe’s top five leagues? This is not to put down the quality of the Primeira Liga, but there are quite a few recent examples of strikers who thrived there but were unable to replicate that form in other countries.
One that immediately comes to mind is Darwin Núñez, who scored 26 goals in 28 Primeira Liga games in the 2021-22 season for Benfica. However, the Uruguayan has struggled for consistency in England, and still hasn’t matched that total in almost three full seasons with Liverpool, scoring 25 times in 89 Premier League appearances.
Núñez’s replacement at Benfica was Gonçalo Ramos, scorer of 19 in 30 in the Portuguese top flight in 2022-23. He’s found regular game time hard to come by since moving to Paris Saint-Germain in 2023, though, to be fair, he does still have a decent scoring record, with 17 goals in 44 Ligue 1 games (24 starts) for the French giants.
Mehdi Taremi scored 64 goals in 122 games for Porto in the Primeira Liga, but has been unable to establish himself at Inter since moving to the Serie A champions last summer, scoring just once in 21 league games – albeit only four have been starts.
Carlos Vinícius netted 18 times for Benfica in the 2019-20 season, which earned him a move to Tottenham Hotspur, but the Brazilian hasn’t scored more than six times in a league campaign for any of his subsequent clubs, including Spurs, PSV and Fulham.
Jackson Martínez plundered 77 goals in 141 Primeira Liga games, but a move to Atlético Madrid did not work out, with the Colombian scoring twice in 15 2015-16 La Liga games before moving to the Chinese Super League.
Going the other way, Haris Seferovic had never scored more than 10 goals in a league campaign prior to joining Benfica in 2017 having played in Serie A, La Liga and the Bundesliga, but the Swiss striker got 23 goals in Portugal in 2018-19 and another 22 two years later.
Perhaps most pertinently when considering if someone thriving at Sporting can replicate that form elsewhere, Bas Dost scored 76 goals in 83 Primeira Liga games for the Lisbon club between 2016 and 2019, but managed only 12 in 36 Bundesliga games for Eintracht Frankfurt between 2019 and 2021.
Islam Slimani hit 27 goals in 33 Primeira Liga games for Sporting in 2015-16 but managed just eight in 40 Premier League outings across spells with Leicester City and Newcastle United. Slimani also hasn’t managed double figures in any league season since then.
There are success stories, though, with the obvious Premier League example being Bruno Fernandes, who has probably been Manchester United’s best player pretty much ever since he moved to Old Trafford from Sporting in 2020.
Evanilson recorded 13 goals in 27 league games for Porto last season, and while he hasn’t quite kept up that strike rate in England with seven goals in 23 Premier League matches for Bournemouth this term, the Brazilian has shown clear improvement as the campaign has gone on.
Maybe the big difference for Gyökeres is that he does at least have history of scoring goals in England. He looked like a player who enjoyed playing on English shores while at Coventry, and he’s developed his game further in his two seasons at Sporting.
It should also be taken into account that a number of the examples above were players who only really had one excellent season in Portugal’s top flight under their belt, whereas Gyökeres has kept up his impressive hit rate over two campaigns, suggesting it is more than a mere purple patch.
However, we are also talking about a player who will not have played a single game in one of Europe’s top five leagues by the time he turns 27 in June. There would be a risk for anyone wanting to procure Sporting’s star man this summer, just as there is with any transfer.
There’s little denying that Gyökeres is a talent. Whether that translates elsewhere is the big question.
Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You can also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
Goals, Carries and Creativity: Why Big Clubs Are Circling for Sporting Star Viktor Gyökeres Opta Analyst.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Goals, Carries and Creativity: Why Big Clubs Are Circling for Sporting Star Viktor Gyökeres )
Also on site :
- Horrific scenes as man slashes children with meat cleaver before being shot by police in suburban New York street
- Man suspected of killing parents in Louisiana is arrested in LA
- Australian conservatives withdraw campaign pledge to stop remote work for public employees