Jamie Carragher believes Mikel Arteta may not trust Viktor Gyokeres in the big games and would be surprised if Arsenal’s new striker starts against Liverpool in a fortnight.
Gyokeres, who completed a £64m move from Sporting earlier in the summer, made his Premier League debut last weekend as the Gunners opened their season with a tricky away fixture at Manchester United.
But while Arsenal were able to grind out a hard-fought 1-0 win at Old Trafford, it was largely an afternoon to forget for new signing Gyokeres.
The Swedish striker had just 21 touches off the ball, completed just four of nine passes and failed to register a single shot on target before being replaced by Kai Havertz on the hour mark.
Gyokeres will hope to get his account up and running when Arsenal return to action next weekend at home against Leeds United.
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But Carragher believes that the 27-year-old may soon find himself starting from the bench, with the former Liverpool defender tipping Kai Havertz to make a return to the starting XI for the trip to Anfield the week after.
‘If I’m being honest, I think they will go back to Havertz in the big games,’ Carragher said on Sky Sports.
‘I can see Gyokeres playing and scoring goals. I think next week they play Leeds but the week after [against Liverpool] I would be very surprised if Havertz doesn’t play.
‘I think Havertz, in Mikel Arteta’s eyes, is a player who is too important to be left out week after week. I don’t see that happening at all.’
However, Gary Neville was not convinced that Arteta will be so quick to bench his new stiker, and said criticism of Gyokeres’ performance against United had been somewhat overblown.
‘Arsenal need a centre forward and they’ve brought one in,’ he said.
‘I’ll be honest, a lot of people have given him a hard time for his performance against United, but I was watching from the gantry and I saw things, glimpses, that he will be a handful for a lot of centre halves.’
Neville even mooted the possibility that both Havertz and Gyokeres could start in the same team together, should the performances of Gabriel Martinelli not improve.
‘I think he will have to find a way to get them both in somehow,’ he said.
‘I know it’s awkward sometimes, but Martinelli does look like he is struggling and so getting Havertz and Gyokeres in [to the same team] might be something he has to try.’
Speaking after his side’s narrow win on opening weekend, Arteta conceded that his side still had work to do in order to make the most out of Gyokeres’ talents.
‘Well he did a lot of things very good,’ Arteta said of the Swede’s performance.
‘You can tell especially in our high press and rhythm that we demand, that especially in the first half we were giving a bit too much time. It is something that we have to work on him, especially there.
‘Then in the final action situation, he did not have that many chances to do that, because in the previous action, we had to play that last ball and the line was standing still with 40 metres to play.
‘We did not manage to put the ball through to exploit his quality. But overall, coming away to Man United, winning your first game with Arsenal, is a good start.’
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