Former Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur manager José Mourinho has expressed doubt over whether Viktor Gyökeres will be a success in the Premier League once an imminent €73.5 million (£63.7 million, $86.2 million) transfer to Arsenal is complete.
Gyökeres has been one of the most talked about striker in Europe in recent months due to his record of 97 goals in 102 appearance since joining Sporting CP in 2023.
The Swede will shortly become the No. 9 that Arsenal have been desperately short of in three failed Premier League title challenges. But there are still valid doubts, with Gyökeres unproven at top-flight level outside Portugal and imports from the Liga Portugal not always successful.
“He’s a great player, I have no doubt,” Mourinho told Record.
“But Sporting had a way of playing very much around him, very adapted. I don’t know what [sporting director] Hugo Viana and Ruben [Amorim] initially thought; he’s a player with great potential. But in England, he’ll play against stronger teams, better players.”
Although the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Díaz, Rúben Dias and Bruno Fernandes have thrived in English football after making the switch from Portugal, Darwin Núñez is the most recent high profile arrival—in a similar mould to Gyökeres as a prolific striker—and struggled.
Jackson Martínez (Atlético Madrid), Bas Dost (Eintracht Frankfurt) and Carlos Vinícius (Tottenham Hotspur) are other examples of strikers who have failed to reproduce Liga Portugal numbers.
Mourinho’s Chelsea ‘More Invincible’ Than Arsenal
Mourinho considers his first great Chelsea side, between 2004 and 2006, above Arsenal’s Invincibles as the Premier League’s best ever team.
Chelsea hadn’t won English football’s top prize in half a century when Mourinho was appointed a year into the Roman Abramovich era, with the Portuguese tactician delivering the title in a record-breaking debut season. The Blues retained the trophy the following year with a similarly dominant season.
Although Arsenal had just gone unbeaten throughout an entire top-flight campaign for the first time since Preston North End 116 years earlier, 2004–05 Chelsea set a Premier League points record (95) that was unbroken until 2018–19. It was also the most wins (29) seen in a 38-game season at that time, most clean sheets (25) and fewest goals conceded (15). Two decades later, the clean sheet and goals conceded records still stand.
Even though Arsenal didn’t lose a single game in 2003–04, Mourinho argues Chelsea had the better season in 2004–05 and then doubled down on that by retaining the title.
“I think Chelsea was the best Premier League team ever,” Mourinho said.
“It’s been 20 years since that team. Arsenal were invincible, but they were invincible in one season. We were more invincible than them in two seasons. They were a fantastic team. We didn’t win the Champions League because there was no goal-line technology [against Liverpool].”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Jose Mourinho Goes on Arsenal Attack: Viktor Gyokeres, ‘Invincibles’ Under Fire.