Viktor Gyokeres will bring unique "desire" to Arsenal ahead of £55.1m Sporting transfer announcement

Viktor Gyokeres is "virtually an Arsenal player", and his highly-anticipated move from Sporting Lisbon could go through before the end of the week, Charles Watts believes.

The Gunners' arduous search for a new number nine is finally nearing its end, as reports emerged on Sunday claiming that they had made a long-awaited breakthrough in negotiations for the Sweden international.

Gyokeres's desire to join Arsenal has been no secret; the 27-year-old is understood to have rejected advances from Manchester United, Juventus and Saudi Arabia to join the Gunners, and personal terms were therefore not a problem.

However, while the transfer remains unconfirmed, Watts is remaining ever so slightly cautious, but the Arsenal expert believes that fans can now begin to practise Gyokeres's trademark celebration.

“You don't want to curse it by going too strong, but it is very, very close now," Watts told Sports Mole. "A significant breakthrough on Sunday, those talks really did move things forward. Gyokeres’s agents are over here thrashing out the finer details.

“Everything with the player has already been sorted, that's been done a long time ago. It's just the really annoying stage of getting those last little bits sorted with Sporting in terms of the exact add-ons, how exactly it's going to work. But in principle, the deal has been agreed, which is the real positive thing. He is virtually an Arsenal player.

'Arsenal fans can start practising Gyokeres celebration'

“But you can't yet completely celebrate it because wilder things have happened where the players literally had their media photos taken and not even ended up signing. But we are very, very close. Arsenal fans can start practising that celebration.

“I'm certainly expecting Victor Gyokeres to be an Arsenal player, potentially by the end of the week. But until it's done, we can't say for certain.”

Gyokeres's impending transfer to North London had been slightly held up by a Sporting soap opera, as club president Frederico Varandas firstly denied the existence of a €70m (£60.7m) gentleman's agreement with the striker's camp.

At the same time, Varandas insisted that he would not demand the full value of Gyokeres's €100m (£86.8m) release clause, although the Gunners initially struggled to find common ground in talks with their Portuguese counterparts.

Sporting were supposedly holding out for approximately €80m (£69.4m), but Arsenal have apparently agreed an initial fee of €63.5m (£55.1m), which could rise by a further €10m (£8.7m) in performance-related add-ons.

Meanwhile, RB Leipzig allegedly wanted around £78m to even entertain the idea of selling Sesko, so the Gyokeres price tag is an excellent deal from Watts's perspective.

Why £55m for Gyokeres is a "really good deal"

“I think it's a really good deal," he added. "£55m up front, give or take, and then just under £10m in add-ons. I know there's reservations about who he's done it against, the league he's been playing in, but when you just look at the sheer amount of goals he's scored, and what he did in the Championship, £55m for a player who's hitting his peak 27 years, I think that's a good deal.

“It’s been a tough negotiation with Sporting, a very public soap opera, but Arsenal didn't blink, they held firm. When you compare it to some of the other deals and what they probably would have had to spend if they bought Benjamin Sesko, you're talking £30m less almost.

“They've done themselves a good deal, which is something we've seen from them so far in this window. They’ve bought well. I'm going to be really intrigued in terms of how they sell, which is probably going to be the next step. But it's a good piece of business. I think Andrea Berta can probably pat himself on the back right now.

“Obviously, this transfer is going to be judged by what Gyokeres does; if he flops, everyone will be looking at it and say it’s £55m down the drain. But right now, I think it looks like a good deal.”

At the start of the window, the consensus was that either Gyokeres or Sesko would end up at the Emirates this summer, and the latter had been pursued by Arsenal for over a year.

Sesko snubbed the Gunners last summer to sign a new Leipzig contract, but there was an expectation that he would be allowed to leave the club for the right price after another year of development in the Bundesliga.

Gyokeres will bring "unwavering desire to score" to Arsenal

However, while Leipzig themselves played hardball, Sesko did not make a major effort to force an exit, whereas Gyokeres risked a hefty fine from Sporting by missing pre-season training in a bid to engineer a transfer.

Watts believes that the Swede's will did play its part, although he also thinks that his "unwavering desire to score" and determination to prove he can cut the mustard in England was just as important.

The former Brighton & Hove Albion man recently spoke of his desire for "revenge" in the Premier League after failing to make a single appearance in the competition on the South Coast, and he will bring a unique dimension to the Arsenal attack, Watts feels.

“His interview with L’Equipe was really interesting - he mentioned the word revenge when he talked about the Premier League," he added. "He'd been here for a long time with Brighton, didn't get a sniff. And he looks back on that time and wants to prove that Brighton made a mistake and that he can cut it in this league.

“He talked about how he believes he's up there with the best strikers in the world and that people are devaluing his achievements because of what he's done in Portugal. There’s a real fire burning in him, certainly from what I've seen. And he plays like that on the pitch as well.

“Whenever he gets anywhere near the goal, it's just an unwavering desire to score, which as an Arsenal fan should be a really exciting prospect. We’ve got lots of quality players, but that absolute desire to score a goal, we don't really have that player. And with Gyokeres, they will.”

Gyokeres ended his final season at Sporting with a phenomenal 54 goals in 52 matches across all competitions, and if all goes to plan, he could potentially make his Gunners debut in their first pre-season tour match against AC Milan in Singapore on July 23.

> Click here to listen to the full discussion on Gyokeres's impending move to Arsenal

Written by
Ben Knapton