Month: September 2026

Improvement under Amorim led to big money Gunners move

Young Viktor Gyökeres in action for Brighton against his future employer

IT WAS SAID Coventry City banked a club-record £17.5million with a further £3.5m in add-ons (and Albion earned a decent sell-on percentage too) when Viktor Gyökeres left the UK for Sporting Lisbon.

If Gyökeres was just warming up at Coventry, as I described in my previous blog post, he caught fire at Sporting, scoring an astonishing 43 goals in 50 games in his first season. And it got better in his second season, racking up 54 goals in 52 appearances.

ESPN asked Sporting legend and former Portugal centre-back Daniel Carriço for his assessment, and he said: “Gyökeres improved not only as a player, but Ruben (Amorim) has a lot of dynamics as a coach, wanting to play with the ball, and Gyökeres was like a new weapon for him.

“He was the biggest weapon against all the teams and Ruben loved to have him in his first XI. Amorim improved his game in all the ways, not only physically, but technically he improved a lot. He knows how to move and beat defenders.”

His near goal-a-game scoring exploits for Sporting helped them to back-to-back league titles and also the Portuguese Cup and after playing against Arsenal in the Champions League in 2024-25, Mikel Arteta swooped to sign him for the Gunners for a reported £63.5m.

“I just felt that it was the right club for me,” said Gyökeres. “When I was playing against Arsenal last season, I could really feel it was a very strong team and very difficult to play against. That made me choose Arsenal, and of course, all the history the club has and the massive fanbase.”

He was touched by the support he received from Arsenal fans before he’d even completed his move and said: “It’s been amazing to see all the support that they have already given me before I even arrived. That’s what it’s all about.

“It’s going to be very nice to see them in the stadiums as well. To be a part of this club and to score in this kit and with this badge in front of all the supporters, I can’t wait. It will be an amazing feeling.”

Although he scored three times in four matches in the early part of the season, the player faced a certain amount of criticism which he addressed in an exclusive interview with Patrick Davison of Sky Sports.

“You have to believe in yourself and keep going, no matter what happens – whether that’s on the pitch or outside,” he said. “I don’t think you have to take in what everyone around you says. You don’t have to listen to everything you hear.”

He’d got used to the scrutiny in Portugal and told Davison: “They live for football there as well. So, in one sense, it’s a bit similar but of course it’s much, much bigger here. They analyse everything you do. But that’s the way it is, there’s nothing wrong with that.

“Maybe it isn’t my no. 1 priority to read everything that’s being said or what people write. It’s just think about the things you can control and do those things right.

Gyökeres went on to top score with 21 goals across all competitions from 40 starts and 15 sub appearances as Arsenal won the Premier League title – their first for 23 years.

However, midway through the season, when the Swede had only scored six in 19 appearances across all competitions, Arteta faced questions about his big money signing.

“The level of attention on him hasn’t changed since when he signed to today,” Arteta told ESPN. “It is normal. Everybody was so excited to bring a nine into the club. We did it. We brought a player with an incredible goalscoring record who had to adapt to the league. He had no pre-season.

“The first few weeks were difficult because physically he wasn’t in his best state and he is a player who needs that like any other player in this league almost to perform at that level. Then he kicked on, he had a really good period and he got injured.

“Now, I saw a lot of positive things in the last two games that he’s done. We need to continue to tweak and understand him a little bit better in certain situations and he needs to do the same. But that’s about time and we have full support for him.”

The manager was confident better things were to come from the player and added: “You can imagine the global impact that you are going to have to deal with when you come to a big club and the expectation is as it is.

“But after you have to live it. Living it is always slightly different to your imagination. He is doing it with a lot of desire. His energy level, his commitment is absolutely top and we are all here to help him because we have all been here, we all need time, there are always moments where the strikers score more goals or less goals. We need to be there for him.”

As well as upping his club strike rate in the second half of the season, it was Gyökeres’ 89th-minute goal that sealed Sweden’s World Cup play-off victory over Poland in Stockholm in March.

Sweden boss Graham Potter was baffled that in spite of all the achievements, Gyökeres had still attracted flak in certain quarters.

Interviewed by Sky Sports ahead of the World Cup, he said: “The team have won the Premier League and got to the Champions League final, and he’s played most of those games, but he still gets the criticism.

“That’s the world we live in. But then you just look at him and you look at how much work he does and how he goes about his business. He’s an incredible character.”

Sweden didn’t cover themselves in glory at the World Cup, finishing third in their group and then being eliminated in a 3-0 defeat to France.

But Gyökeres got a goal and two assists as Sweden beat Tunisia 5-1 and he later told FIFA.com: “It can’t get much bigger than the World Cup. It’s incredible and I’m very proud.

“I think we have extremely talented players. With time, I think we’re going to be very, very good.”

Do Brighton have any regrets about letting Gyökeres go when they did?

Ever-diplomatic chief executive Barber told Sky Sports: “It depends on whether you say slipped through or progressed through. I would prefer to say progressed through.

“It’s always good when you spot a young talent, nurture them and you see them go on to even better things.”

Barber pointed out: “Viktor progressed exceptionally well – but he wanted to progress even further faster.

“At that time, we couldn’t guarantee him first-team football here. We were very happy to continue to loan Viktor so he could continue to progress.

“But I think it says a lot about Viktor himself that he wanted a more permanent base sooner. He eventually got that and the rest is history.”

Albion spell helped put young Lingard on path to success

JESSE LINGARD is now in his 30s and plying his trade in Brazil but Oscar Garcia’s Brighton gave the player invaluable experience in the second tier of English football before he became a Manchester United and England regular.

Lingard scored four times in 17 appearances in 2014 as the Seagulls reached the divisional play-off semi-finals which Derby County – Lingard’s next loan club – won over two legs.

He didn’t make as spectacular a debut for Brighton as he did for Birmingham earlier that (2013-14) season when he scored four times in a 4-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday.

But he did earn a controversial penalty at The New Den, when he was adjudged to have been fouled by Danny Shittu. Albion beat Millwall 1-0, Spaniard David Lopez scoring from the resultant spot kick. “It is shoulder to shoulder, if anything,” Millwall boss Ian Holloway later claimed. “I can’t say that there wasn’t enough contact because Danny is built like a proverbial.”

Recognised for his contribution in Albion colours

Lingard’s first goal for the Albion came in a dramatic 4-1 win at already-promoted Leicester City when he headed Stephen Ward’s cross past Kasper Schmeichel.

Having been on loan with the Foxes the previous season, he’d been getting a bit of stick from their supporters so he said: “I had to silence them a bit with my celebration. The goal had been coming and I was obviously pleased to score, especially with it being a header as well.”

Asked why he’d plumped for the loan at Brighton when other clubs were after him, Lingard told the matchday programme: “It’s a club that shares my philosophy on football and it’s very similar to how we play at United, so it was a move that suited me.”

For his part, Garcia described Lingard as “one of the most exciting young English strikers” and “a talent who has already shown he can play at Championship level”.

An extended feature on Lingard’s development appeared in the matchday programme for Albion’s game at Old Trafford in November 2017.

One of the coaches involved in his development, academy advisor Tony Whelan, said: “Jesse has had to be patient throughout his career. As a younger player, he was physically under-developed so he had to play a younger age group.

“That wasn’t easy, but he had the patience, intelligence and trust in the coaching staff to know that those decisions were made in his best interests, that we knew at some point he was going to grow. At some point, all that ability would be able to come out.

Lingard celebrates with Leonardo Ulloa

“He’s got a wonderful mindset, so his ability to come on and make an impact on the game is down to the fact he’s resilient, he has a wonderful mentality, and he is a great observer of the game. That comes out all the time in the way he deals with things. And on top of that, he has his excellent technical ability.”

Whelan added: “He’s only of slight build, so he’s developed great technical ability, good passing, dribbling, he’s a really good mover – very fluid, a wonderful mover – and he’s athletic without looking that athletic.”

The coach said: “You don’t get in our first-team squad without being a very accomplished player. He’s also playing for the national team fairly regularly. That’s testimony to Jesse’s abilities as an all-round footballer now.”

Coach Whelan summed up Lingard thus: “From the day he first walked into this football club at seven years of age, he always had a smile on his face. He’s always loved playing, always loved the game, always had wonderful enthusiasm, and in some ways he’s inspired the coaches with his love of the game and love of the ball.

“You never had to ask him to work hard, he was always running around, always energetic, always mischievous, and those are the qualities he brought.”

Having featured for England’s under 17s and under 21s, Lingard made his full England debut in October 2016 in a 2-0 win over Malta, he started five of England’s seven matches at the 2018 World Cup in Russia and over the course of five years won 32 caps for his country.

Double delight for Lingard v Andorra

He scored England’s first and third goals on his penultimate appearance, in a World Cup qualifying 4-0 win over Andorra in September 2021, and his last game for England was against the same country the following month in a 5-0 away win.

In an interview with the Albion matchday programme for Brighton’s home game with United in 2017-18, Lingard reflected on his loan spell with the Seagulls and said: “I wanted to go to the club because I knew they were a good club with a great stadium and great fans – it was the perfect club to go on loan to.”

He added: “The stadium, the staff, the fans, you could see the ambition of the club. I always knew that the club would make it into the Premier League. It was heading in that direction for a couple of seasons.”

Lingard went on as a sub (for Marouane Fellaini) in the 2017-18 season finale when Albion beat United 1-0 courtesy of a 58th-minute Pascal Gross goal. And he was a half-time replacement for Juan Mata when the following season began with the identical fixture, on that occasion the Seagulls once again the winners, 3-2, with Gross on the scoresheet from a penalty adding to goals from Glenn Murray and Shane Duffy; Romelu Lukaku and Paul Pogba (penalty) for United.

Although Lingard broke into the United first team under Louis Van Gaal and was a regular during Jose Mourinho’s reign, he fell out of favour with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and spent half the 2021-22 season on loan at West Ham.

He had an injury-wracked 2022-23 season at newly-promoted Nottingham Forest making 14 starts and six sub appearances under Steve Cooper and was one of five players released at the end of the campaign.

That spelled the end of his time in English football. He spent a month in the autumn training with Saudi Pro League side El-Attifaq, managed by Steven Gerrard at the time, and he played in a friendly and scored against Al Khaldiya, but a foreign player restriction meant he wasn’t eligible to play competitively and the following February he ventured to South Korea to play for FC Seoul in the country’s capital.

Seoul mate Lingard

His home debut attracted a crowd of 51,670 – setting a new K League attendance record – and having not played competitively for eight months he struggled at the start. His coach Kim Gi-Dong even publicly criticised him for “a lack of effort and physicality”.

In an interview with BBC Sport’s Sami Mokbel, Lingard spoke of coming to terms with playing in the humidity and dealing with a meniscus injury, and he said: “The tempo is high out here, the games are intense. At the start, I wasn’t fit, but once I found the rhythm I got used to it.”

Lingard said the move to the Far East had enabled him to enjoy his football again. “I’m out here to find peace. Happiness is peace at the end of the day. If you can find that, it doesn’t matter where you are.

He told Mokbel: “I’m still playing football and I’m enjoying myself. I still have many years of playing football ahead of me – I’m 32 but the stats don’t show that I’m 32.

“I can play for a long time. It has 100 per cent been the right choice. It was a fresh start, to get my happiness back playing football, that was the main thing.

“It’s been an amazing experience. Different cultures, the people are amazing, the city is amazing.

“I feel I’ve come on leaps and bounds mentally. I think the move has improved my outlook on life.”

Indeed, Lingard went on to establish himself as a key player for FC Seoul – making 66 appearances and contributing 18 goals – and was eventually made captain.

When he decided to call it a day in December 2025, he wrote on Instagram: “My time in South Korea has been unbelievable – the football, the atmosphere and the passion around this club have been top class.

“The love, support and the appreciation you have shown towards me for these last two years has been truly amazing. I’ll always be grateful for the opportunity to play for such a massive club.”

FC Seoul said in a statement: “He generated an extraordinary level of public attention and emerged as a symbolic figure not only for the club but for the entire K League.”

In March 2026, he pitched up at top Brazilian league side SC Corinthians Paulista, where he has been playing since.

Preparing in Brazil

Quick Vik sped to the very top after sluggish Albion start

VIKTOR GYÖKERES is certainly right up there in Brighton’s short list of ‘ones that got away’.

The striker left the Seagulls for Coventry in a £1m deal, went on to score almost a goal a game over two seasons for Sporting Lisbon, joined Arsenal for £63.5m in the summer of 2025, and played for Sweden at the 2026 World Cup finals.

His meteoric rise from Brighton ‘reject’ to one of Europe’s hottest strikers is a story that’s unsurprisingly been seized upon by various media outlets.

“Viktor, he was a young lad at the club and was he up to the level? Well, the manager (Chris Hughton) didn’t think he was up to the level,” former teammate Glenn Murray admitted when speaking with 10bet. “We were in a squad where we were in survival mode, and you couldn’t really bring lads in to develop them.

A rare Brighton first team outing for Gyökeres against Manchester United

“In all honesty, it was one of those situations where he made that hard decision to leave the Premier League and in hindsight, it was the right decision to leave.”

Murray added: “Did I see it coming what has happened? Probably not. It just shows what belief in yourself, other people’s belief and confidence can do for you.”

Born in Stockholm on 4 June 1998, Gyökeres was only five when he started playing football with IFK Aspudden-Tellus. He first drew the attention of football scouts after he had joined Stockholm-based club Brommapojkarna as a 16-year-old, initially as a winger.

“We saw that he had the abilities to be a No. 9 with his strength and breakthrough capacity and started to focus on those abilities,” Brommapojkarna scout David Eklund told ESPN. “He grew a lot and started to produce goals more and more regularly.”

He was also selected for Sweden’s national youth sides and he started to earn a ‘wonderkid’ tag. Some observers reckoned he was the country’s biggest attacking talent since Zlatan Ibrahimović.

Brighton agreed to sign him in September 2017 but he remained with Brommapojkarna until the end of their season, finishing in style with a hat-trick in his last game which earned the club promotion to the Allsvenskan as champions.

He arrived in Sussex in January 2018, initially linking up with the under-23s.

Ahead of the 2018-19 season, he saw action with the first team in pre-season friendlies, scoring the only goal of the game in a behind-closed-doors win over Nice at the French club’s training ground, going on for Murray on 34 minutes in a 1-1 draw with Swiss side St Gallen, replacing Solly March for the last 20 minutes of a 2-1 defeat to AFC Wimbledon and finally getting half an hour as sub for James Tilley in a 1-1 draw at Charlton.

That involvement led to him making his competitive first team debut in an inexperienced line-up that lost 1-0 at home to Southampton in the Carabao Cup. Fellow youngsters Ben Barclay and Will Collar also started and £17m (then) record signing Alireza Jahanbakhsh made his debut.

On as a sub at Bournemouth

January 2019 was a memorable month for Gyökeres: three days after going on as a late sub for Anthony Knockaert in Albion’s home FA Cup third round 3-1 win over Bournemouth, he made his full international debut for Sweden in a 1-0 defeat to Finland and on 11 January scored a goal in his country’s 2-2 draw with Iceland.

Gyökeres was then featured in the matchday programme for the home FA Cup fourth round 0-0 draw with West Brom, when he was again a sub. He started the replay at The Hawthorns when Albion won 3-1.

In the following round, he got on as a sub when replacing Jurgen Locadia in Albion’s 2-1 win over Derby County, although he wasn’t involved in the quarter or semi-final matches.

But with that small amount of first team involvement, and having scored seven times in 19 games for the under-23s, Gyökeres had done enough for Albion to offer him a new three-year contract.

On target from the penalty spot

After signing he said: “I like this club and it feels like they believe in me.

“I want to do my best to prove that I can do good things here. I moved to another country with another language, so of course it’s been different compared to Sweden, but I’ve settled in well.

“It’s been good to train with the first team and travel with them to away games this season – it’s been a great experience and hopefully there will be more of that in the future.

“Next season I want to do better than I’ve done this year. Of course, I’d like to play in the first team, but I’ve got to work hard in pre-season, see what happens and what is best for me.”

Alas, what happened next was the departure of Hughton and the arrival of Graham Potter (now Gyökeres’ manager with the Swedish national side).

Instead of continuing his development at Brighton, he was sent on a season-long loan to St Pauli (Fabian Hurzeler’s former side) in the second tier of the Bundesliga at the start of the 2019-20 season. He scored seven goals in 28 appearances in Germany before returning to the Albion.

When Gyökeres played his first game under Potter, it was at an empty Amex because of the Covid-19 pandemic. He scored (above) playing as a lone striker as Brighton beat Portsmouth 4-0 in the Carabao Cup after which Potter said: “He has got attributes that are different. It’s not the easiest  to play up front on his own. He kept going, he got his rewards at the end.”

Although he also played in the same competition’s 2-0 win over Preston North End and 3-0 defeat to Manchester United, the arrival of Danny Welbeck put another obstacle in the way of his first team opportunities and he was loaned out to Potter’s former club, Championship side Swansea City.

On making the move, Gyökeres admitted Potter and his assistants Billy Reid and Bjorn Hamberg had all recommended the move to south Wales. “I spoke to them a little bit as they had been here,” he told Swansea’s website. “They only had good things to say and that made me more comfortable to come here and play here.”

However, the loan was cut short after he’d made only three starts plus nine sub appearances and scored just one goal for Steve Cooper’s side, in an FA Cup third-round game at Stevenage.

He returned to Brighton but several things aligned that resulted in him joining Coventry City for the remainder of the season.

Chris Badlan, then head of recruitment for the Sky Blues, told ESPN: “Viktor is someone me and my chief scout at the time, Stuart Benthom, knew about when he was playing out in Sweden.

“As a scout, you need to know who the best 16/17-year-olds are who are playing on the continent. Brighton had signed him so we followed him in their under-23s, he then went to St. Pauli and we just kept tracking him like you always do.”

Coventry already had Albion’s Leo Østigård on loan and he convinced Gyökeres to join him and, as Badlan pointed out: “We had two or three centre-forwards injured at the same time so we could show him the opportunity. It all married up because he wanted to play and we needed a striker straight away.”

After scoring three times in 19 appearances, Gyökeres joined Coventry permanently in July 2021, reportedly for £1m, with manager Mark Robins saying: “Viktor is a talented striker with good power, pace and movement, and great potential. He showed a terrific attitude when he was with us on loan.

“He grew in confidence, and we hope that he will continue to show the same improvement and desire.”

According to Badlan, that summer Gyökeres spent his holiday time working hard on his conditioning. “He worked on his strengths. He was already a powerful runner but, all of a sudden, his shoulders, he got a bit more square, stronger in his core. It enabled him to roll defenders better.”

Badlan also reckoned much credit for the player’s development should go to former Manchester United forward Robins and his assistant Adi Viveash, who was used to nurturing talent having spent 10 years with Chelsea’s academy and under-23s.  

“They polished the rough diamond that he was. They simplified his game. They worked with him in identifying his best attributes.

“Mark, being an ex-striker, helped Viktor understand his body, getting his positioning right, where to make runs, when to get the timing right.”

And it paid off big time. He began the season with nine goals in his first 11 games finished the season as top scorer with 18 goals and repeated the feat in 2022-23, finishing on 22 as City made it to the Championship play-off final but lost on penalties to Luton Town.

It was at Coventry where he began his distinctive goal celebration – covering half his face with interlocking fingers to resemble a mask a la Bane, the villain in 2012 film The Dark Knight Rises.

Reporter Andy Turner, who has covered Coventry for the Coventry Telegraph for more than 20 years, was asked his opinion of the player by several media outlets.

“In training, he was known to be a little bit grumpy, and that was largely due to the fact that he wanted everything done the right way,” said Turner. “He had very high standards and made demands on his teammates. He was quite a serious guy off the pitch.

“On the pitch, he worked hard and was just really strong and a willing runner off the ball, a real team player as well. He was at his best when he had the ball at his feet and was running at defenders doing his thing.”

Similar thoughts came from Josh Kerr, who played in the same Albion under-23 side as Gyökeres. Interviewed by Sky Sports, Kerr said: “He’s probably one of the most ruthless players that I’ve seen when he’s on the halfway line and he’s going to goal from the left.

“It was just the pace and power, sometimes teams couldn’t cope with that.”

November 2022 player of the month award

Kerr highlighted the Swede’s willingness to put in a shift for the team, saying: “He would do it without you having to ask him – which is massive for certain teams or managers.

“He was just a good guy and that’s what you get from him. Works hard, does his job for the team.

“We obviously rated him highly then but we didn’t think he would kick on as much as he has, which has been quite incredible.”

The Telegraph’s Turner heaped praise on the player, saying: “He’s so strong on the ball, he protects the ball really well, he will take on two or three players in the box and will somehow get past them.

“He is a formidable striker. He is like an old school centre-forward in stature but he is very good with the ball at his feet. Technically he is good but he is very strong, it’s difficult to shrug him off the ball and he plays with a swagger.”

Maybe if Coventry had reached the Premier League in 2023, he would have stayed but plenty of clubs had noted his scoring prowess and, with a year left on his contract, he opted to move to Portugal to play for Sporting Lisbon under Ruben Amorim.

• See my pre-Arsenal blog post for what happened next.