Ruben Amorim hands Arsenal transfer green light to sign game-changing striker

New Manchester United head coach Ruben Amorim looks to have provided Arsenal with a dream transfer opportunity to sign Sporting CP striker Viktor Gyokeres. Nearly every major European club has been linked to the Sweden international following his excellent debut season in Portugal with that form continuing into the 2024/25 campaign.

From 18 games played in all competitions, Gyokeres has already bagged 23 goals with three of those coming against Manchester City in the Champions League. In Amorim's final home game in charge of the Portuguese champions, Sporting beat Pep Guardiola's side 4-1 with Gyokeres netting a hat-trick.

Just a few days later, Amorim oversaw his final game in charge with Sporting coming back from two goals down to beat Braga 4-2. He has since arrived at Carrington to begin working as Man United's new boss with transfer links already ramping up ahead of January.

Unsurprisingly, Gyokeres has been at the forefront of those rumours with the expectation that this will be his final season at Sporting. Alongside United, Arsenal and Manchester City have also been linked with the latter set to welcome Hugo Viana, who helped Sporting sign Gyokeres, as sporting director this summer.

As such, that puts them firmly in the race for his signature with Amorim having already furthered the likelihood of a summer departure. "I can’t make fun of it, right now, it was hard for me to leave, if I start joking about this Gyokeres situation I’ll get in trouble," Amorim said on TNT Sports. "This is my city, this is my country, so I’ll respect it."

"Viktor has to stay until the end of the season, and then his life maybe is going somewhere else." He later added, as reported by A Bola: "I won't go to the January transfer window, that's what I said. I don't know about the summer. First I have to hold out until the summer. Sporting's players are very good players. I don't know. We'll see,"

Given his rather honest admission as someone that worked closely with Gyokeres for over 12 months, the most likely scenario is that he does have a new club for the 2025/26 season.

However, Arsenal could attempt to test the waters in January by making a big-money play for the 26-year-old with it likely every club interested makes a play next summer. It would cost the Gunners a significant amount but the immediate impact could be game-changing, especially as he would arrive mid-season with the title battle between Arsenal, Liverpool and Man City heating up

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