It’s always unfair because when I talk about a striker, it brings an unnecessary pressure, sometimes, because whenever I say something it goes above and beyond.
What I would say about Gyokeres is that you saw his goal against Athletic Club the other day. That instinct and understanding to anticipate the cross, a great header with soft touch to guide it to the other side of the goal – he is a proper No9. That’s the goal of a 9.
He is not a [Roberto] Firmino type of 9 that’s going to drop into midfield. He wants to be in the box, in between the posts, and he said it himself – please put the ball in the box and serve me.
You have a guy that’s a killer in the box – numbers don’t lie – and you have a team that create a lot of chances, so it should be the perfect match, but you have to also understand that sometimes it doesn’t click straight away.
What you want is people to be patient with him, and what is annoying right now is that people are not that patient anymore. They want the guy to perform straight away, score goals straight away and make us win straight away, which doesn’t happen often.
He already was in England, let’s not forget that. He was at Coventry, he couldn’t do it at Brighton, so you can see a guy who already knows what struggling is and comes back from that. He’s more confident, and you can see from his body the way he’s looked after himself, the way he’s changed.
I love when people show me what they can do, and then I can talk. Right now, people love to talk before the performance.
I’m an Arsenal fan, I obviously hope he’s going to do well, bang goals for us, and guide us to a title, but he’s not going to do that alone. We have seen that goals don’t always assure you a title. We’ve seen guys with mad numbers, but they didn’t win anything. The team around them has to be good.
From what I’ve seen from him and how he finishes, hopefully it’s going to be a great match and we can finally go back to lift that trophy. But as I’ve said, a lot of teams want to lift that.
Thierry Henry
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