Viktor Gyokeres’ January Player of the Month award captured a shift in Arsenal’s attack, not a finished product, but a striker whose role is clearer and whose influence is growing as goals start to arrive more regularly.
Viktor Gyokeres being voted Arsenal’s men’s Player of the Month for January was a useful marker, but not because it proves anything has been “solved”. It reflects a period in which his output ticked up and, just as importantly, the fit between striker and system began to look more natural.
The league numbers in 2026 remain reasonable rather than spectacular. Gyokeres has five Premier League goals in his last ten, since the turn of 2026. An improvement on the five through his first 17 appearances in the Premier League. He may not be a striker single-handedly dragging a team through spring, but it is a return that suggests rhythm is building, and it has arrived alongside performances that look more connected to Arsenal’s best football.
What looks different in 2026
The first change is the timing of Arsenal’s passes into him. Earlier in the season, Gyokeres too often received with his back to goal and little support in the second phase. Since the turn of the year, the service has felt quicker, flatter and closer to the areas where he can hurt teams, either with an early run across a centre-back or a first-time finish. His Spurs brace, in particular, came in a game where Arsenal repeatedly found him in the box rather than asking him to manufacture chances in traffic.
There is also a subtle tactical shift in how Arsenal are using him to simplify certain moments. When opponents settle into a low block, Arsenal can become overly reliant on perfect combinations around the edge of the area. Gyokeres offers a more direct route: early balls into the box, defenders pinned deeper, and more second-ball situations where Arsenal’s midfielders can arrive facing goal rather than facing a packed line. It does not replace Arsenal’s intricate play. It gives them another way of playing when the game starts to feel like a puzzle.
Mikel Arteta has framed the improvement as momentum and understanding, rather than transformation. “I think one thing leads to another,” he told Sky Sports. “When you score the first one or the performances are good, you have more time with your team-mates, you understand the games, the opponent, the league better. Everything helps.”
That feels like the right level of caution. Arteta also set out the responsibility on Arsenal’s side of the equation: “We know his qualities. He is undoubtedly an incredible striker. We need to feed to his quality, we need to understand him better, he needs to understand the team, the league better, I think we are in the right trajectory.”
The important point there is the shared burden. This is not framed as “Gyokeres must adapt” so much as “Arsenal must supply”. In other words, the striker is not being judged solely on whether he scores. He is being judged on whether he gives Arsenal a different problem-solving tool. And Arsenal are being judged on whether they can build the right conditions for that tool to matter.
Odegaard’s clue about what Arsenal value in him
Martin Odegaard’s programme notes ahead of the win against Chelsea adds another layer. The captain linked Gyokeres’ confidence to goals, then widened the point to everything else he contributes: “As a striker I know he loves to get the goals, and that gives him even more confidence and a different feeling on the pitch,” Odegaard wrote, before adding that “what he gives us on the pitch apart from the goals is massive.”
That is the key. Arsenal are not treating Gyokeres as a pure finisher waiting for tap-ins. They want him to pin defenders, compete, press, and give the team a direct option when matches tighten.
A better trend, not the finished version
None of this says Arsenal have perfected the formula, and it would be premature to write it that way when the league return in 2026 is five in 10 games, good rather than ruthless. That said, the improvement is that Gyokeres now looks less isolated and more deliberately used: earlier service, clearer box occupation, and a growing sense that Arsenal know when to go through him and when to go around him.
The next step is simple and unforgiving. If this is the upward line, it has to hold in the games that decide seasons, the tight knockout nights and the league matches where one chance can be the difference. That is where “right trajectory” becomes something firmer, and where a striker’s best version stops being a promise and starts being a fact.