Arsenal are after a new striker, and Benjamin Sesko and Viktor Gyökeres are reported to be targets. What kind of forwards are they, and what would they bring to London?
You may have heard, but Arsenal are in need of a striker.
It seems borderline reductive to boil down all their ills last season to a lack of a consistent goalscoring number nine, but that didn’t stop the feeling that a potent striker could have made the difference as Arsenal finished without any silverware. They came second in the Premier League, a full 10 points behind Liverpool, and were eliminated from the UEFA Champions League at the semi-final stage by eventual winners Paris Saint-Germain.
It was not the only reason they failed to live up to pre-season expectations, but there is surely some improving to be done on Kai Havertz, who is clearly not a natural goalscorer, being their top scorer in the league with just nine goals. The perennially injured Gabriel Jesus simply cannot be relied on for a whole season.
If the rumour mill is to be believed, the club are keen to address the issue. In recent weeks, they have been strongly linked with a move for RB Leipzig‘s Benjamin Sesko, while Sporting CP’s Viktor Gyökeres has been a reported target for several months now.
You would imagine Arsenal will sign at most one of them, but which one should they go for? With the assistance of Opta data, we’ve taken a closer look at both players to give you a better idea of the type of player Arsenal could end up with. Here’s what both players would bring to the Emirates Stadium were they to sign…
Benjamin Sesko
In short, Sesko can do it all.
The Slovenian is a true all-rounder; he is one of the most multi-faceted strikers in Europe. Standing at nearly two metres tall, lightning quick, comfortable receiving the ball to feet with his back to goal or hanging on the shoulder of the last defender and racing onto a through ball, he can also score goals of all types from all sorts of distances.
Does this sound a bit like another big centre-forward already in the Premier League? Indeed, there are some similarities between Sesko and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland.
Like Haaland, Sesko is an incredible physical specimen, a forward who gives defenders headaches with his sharp movement, pace and strength. However, Sesko does not – yet, at least – have anything like the single-minded ruthlessness in front of goal that makes Haaland stand out from the crowd.
He scored 13 goals in 33 Bundesliga appearances for RB Leipzig this season, a decent return that put him ninth overall in the goalscorer standings while playing for the seventh-best team in the league. But his 2.5 shots per 90 and 0.31 xG per 90 put him 33rd and 29th, respectively, among players with 1,000+ minutes played, showing that he isn’t anything like the goal machine that Haaland is.
But while Haaland scores goals for fun, Sesko’s game is arguably more complete. This is not even beginning to suggest Sesko is the better player, just that there is greater variety to his game.
The 22-year-old’s game has developed significantly in the last year. In his first season at Leipzig, he ranked fourth for the proportion (17%) of his touches that were in the opposition’s box (of players with 500+ touches), and he scored 13 of his 14 goals from inside the box. He scored one more goal that season than he managed in 2024-25 despite playing 867 minutes fewer.
But while he scored less frequently this season, he has become more rounded. He dropped deep much more often in 2024-25, with just 9.7% of his touches coming in the box, putting him way down in 39th among players to have 500+ touches. As the graphic below shows, he had more touches all over the pitch in 2024-25 compared to the season before, but his touches in the box dropped.
Meanwhile, of the 12 players with 12+ Bundesliga goals in 2024-25, only Bayern Munich midfielder Michael Olise scored a lower proportion of his goals (66.7%) from inside the box than Sesko (76.9%), while the Leipzig forward took a lower proportion of his shots from inside the box than anyone else (63.2%). He shoots from distance because he can do things like this… (If you can’t see the video below, go in search of Sesko’s goal against Werder Bremen from January this year. Take it from us: it’s worth seeing.)
What a strike from RB Leipzig's 21-year-old Benjamin Sesko! Jurgen Klopp was also in attendance to witness the stunner pic.twitter.com/tVi6myKNxy
— Sky Sports Football (@SkyFootball) January 12, 2025See what we mean about him doing things that Haaland doesn’t do now?
Sesko also does plenty of work to get in behind, too, using his frightening pace to trouble defenders. According to Bundesliga data, he registered the 26th highest speed of all players in the Bundesliga in 2025-26 (35.7 km/h), behind only a handful of strikers and just 1.5 km/h slower than the fastest player in the league (Eintracht Frankfurt’s 20-year-old midfielder Jean-Mattéo Bahoya – 37.2 km/h).
He also puts his height (and the huge leap he shows off with his goal celebration every time he scores) to very good use. He boasted the best aerial success rate (57.4%) of the 25 forwards to contest at least 60 aerial duels in the Bundesliga this season. And Sesko contested 122 of them, so his success rate is even more impressive.
That could come in very handy for Arsenal, with Arteta happy for goalkeeper David Raya to go long when it is the right thing to do, and also with set-pieces so important to the team. He has yet to really show what he can do with his considerable frame at dead balls for Leipzig, but that would presumably change under Arteta, who would want to take advantage of Sesko’s aerial ability at both ends of the pitch.
The main thing most Arsenal fans want from a new centre-forward is a player who can stay close to goal to work chances consistently and finish them off, too. Sesko’s overperformance compared to his non-penalty xG in the Bundesliga this season of +2.7 is significantly better than any individual at Arsenal managed in the Premier League, but it doesn’t suggest truly elite finishing quite yet.
He can also be a little patchy with his goalscoring. He scored half of his 14 goals in 2023-24 in a seven-game scoring streak as he became the youngest player since Rudi Völler in 1982-83 to net in seven consecutive Bundesliga matches. And this season, he has had runs of scoring five goals in four games and seven in eight, while also enduring separate runs of three goals in 11 games and one in 10.
He is far from the end product but is still only 22, and there would be a hell of a lot for Arsenal to work with should they sign him.
Viktor Gyökeres
Gyökeres has long seemed like an ideal option to many.
Among those people is reportedly Arsenal sporting director Andrea Berta, who is apparently a big fan of the Sweden international and is hoping to bring him to north London.
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 game.
Something he arguably has over Sesko is his previous experience in English football, albeit not in the Premier League, as well as a hugely impressive goalscoring record.
After a spell at Brighton & Hove Albion in which he barely played and a short loan at Swansea City, Gyökeres scored 38 goals in 94 Championship games for Coventry City across the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, earning admiring glances from across Europe.
Gyökeres then joined Sporting CP for a reported fee of around £20 million in the summer of 2023, before scoring a whopping 43 goals in 50 games in all competitions in his first season. He followed that up with an even more impressive 54 goals in 52 games this term, including a phenomenal 39 in 33 Primeira Liga matches.
Gyökeres scored the most goals in Europe’s top 10 leagues this season, netting at least eight more than any other player. Granted, 12 of his Primeira Liga strikes were penalties, but his total of 27 non-penalty goals was still three more than anyone else.
If Mikel Arteta wants his striker to trouble the opposition’s goalkeeper frequently, he may be excited at the prospect of Gyökeres joining. The Swede attempted 4.5 shots per 90 minutes on average in the Primeira Liga this season, while Gabriel Jesus averaged 3.0 and Kai Havertz 2.6 in the Premier League.
It wasn’t just shot volume, though. Gyökeres had impressive accuracy with a shot conversion rate (excluding blocked shots and penalties) of 27.3%. By comparison, in the Premier League this season, Mohamed Salah had a conversion rate of 21.1%, while Erling Haaland’s was 21.6% and Gyökeres’ compatriot Alexander Isak ended with 26.4%.
The only Premier League player to boast a better conversion rate (minimum four goals scored) was Chris Wood (32.1%). Havertz (20.5%) and Jesus (18.8%) were unsurprisingly well behind.
Gyökeres also scored six goals in seven UEFA Champions League matches this season, including a hat-trick against Manchester City in a 4-1 victory at the José Alvalade Stadium in November. Only four players scored more goals in the 2024-25 league phase.
He is a creator as well as a goalscorer, too, ranking second for chances created from open play in the Primeira Liga this season (60).
For comparison, Gyökeres created 1.9 chances from open play in the league, only behind Bukayo Saka (2.1) and Martin Ødegaard (2.0) of Arsenal players to play a minimum of 300 league minutes.
A lot of his best work comes from his ability with the ball at his feet. Only two players in Portugal’s top flight attempted more dribbles than Gyökeres’ 130 this season, while his 4.2 dribble attempts per 90 was the same as Saka for Arsenal in the league, with only Ethan Nwaneri (6.4) averaging more for Arteta’s men.
Gyökeres ranked third in the Primeira Liga for long progressive carries (128) – carrying the ball at least 10 metres upfield – behind a couple of Benfica defenders (Nicolás Otamendi – 131, Álvaro Carreras – 132), who operate in less congested areas of the pitch and have far less impact when they carry the ball.
Meanwhile, only five players carried the ball further overall in the Primeira Liga than Gyökeres (4,795 metres), and among those to attempt at least 200 carries, only Sporting Braga’s Gabri Martínez (13.2m) carried it further each time on average (13.0m).
In other words, once he starts running with the ball, he can take some stopping; he is one of the best ball-carrying centre-forwards in Europe, so if Arsenal can create space for him to run into, they’d be getting a very effective player.
He doesn’t shirk his responsibilities off the ball either, with only two players winning possession in the opposition’s final third more times in the Primeira Liga this season than his 31.
Gyökeres seems on paper like someone Arteta would enjoy working with, though the pressure to hit the ground running given the focus on Arsenal’s need for a number nine would be tremendous.
Can He Do It on a Cold Tuesday Night in North London?
Both Sesko and Gyökeres are clearly excellent players, but we must address the elephant in the room; how likely is a player who has done well in Germany or Portugal to do the same in the Premier League?
According to our league strength analysis, based on the Opta Power Ratings of the teams involved, the Bundesliga is the third best league in the world behind the Premier League and La Liga. The adjustment from Germany to England would be significant but far from insurmountable, then.
The Portuguese Primeira Liga, meanwhile, is way down in eighth place, behind England’s second tier and the Belgian Jupiler Pro League.
The best teams in Portugal’s top division are able to compete with some of the best teams in Europe, as Sporting showed with their 4-1 win over City in the Champions League this season.
But the overall quality is, according to our measurements, lower than the Championship, suggesting Gyökeres’ impressive goalscoring numbers should be taken with a decent pinch of salt.
For example, it’s not clear that hat-tricks against Farense (578th in the world, according to the Opta Power Rankings), Estrela (656th) and Boavista (777th) should necessarily convince us that Gyökeres will score as consistently in the Premier League.
After all, there are quite a few examples of strikers who thrived in Portugal 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 but has struggled for consistency in England. He still hasn’t matched that total in three full seasons with Liverpool, scoring 25 times in 95 Premier League appearances.
Jackson Martínez, Carlos Vinícius and Mehdi Taremi are others who have struggled in a stronger league after thriving in Portugal.
Meanwhile, 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 scored 23 goals in Portugal in 2018-19 and another 22 two years later.
There have been some success stories, though, with the obvious Premier League example of Bruno Fernandes, who has probably been Manchester United’s best player pretty much ever since he moved to Old Trafford from Sporting in 2020.
Also, 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 10 goals in 31 Premier League matches for Bournemouth in 2024-25, the Brazilian has without doubt been a success on the south coast.
So, Who Should Arsenal Sign?
First things first, both strikers are very, very good options.
Sesko has age on his side and has played in a better league this season, but Gyökeres has almost unmatched goalscoring numbers in recent years, and it’s goals that Arsenal want.
As for the question of which player Arsenal should choose, we’re going to sit on the fence on this one and wait and see what happens.
Sesko or Gyökeres: if Arsenal get either, there’ll be plenty of reason for optimism about next season.
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Benjamin Sesko vs Viktor Gyökeres: What Would Arsenal Get From Each Striker? Opta Analyst.
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