Recent days have been relatively quiet on Viktor Gyökeres moving to the Premier League, with the Italian media going through the same process we’ve all seen earlier but this time for Juventus.
Friday’s Portuguese newspapers bring a little more on the situation, with Record once again making it clear the Sweden international very much wants to play for Arsenal. Gyökeres is still on holiday and ‘patience is the word’ for the Sporting CP star at the moment.
Record state ‘he’s willing to wait until the end to see his dream of playing for Arsenal become reality’.
There’s interest from other clubs, but Gyökeres wants Arsenal to be his next step, however, negotiations between Sporting and the Gunners are still frozen and Record say there hasn’t even been any contact for a week.
Arsenal initially showed a willingness to pay €55m plus a potential further €10m in bonus payments, with Sporting wanting €80m.
The player’s camp still believe Sporting’s former sporting director Hugo Viana, now at Manchester City, promised them an exit for €60m plus €10m in variables, and Record report: ‘The Nordic player’s agent, Hasan Çetinkaya, believes he can explain all the situations that are at the origin of the conflict, with evidence, so that Sporting fans also understand the player’s motives.
‘In this sense, Record has learned, the agent is keeping open the possibility of revealing, specifically, an audio message from Hugo Viana, in which he will confirm the gentlemen’s agreement to allow Gyökeres to leave for €60m + €10m, following the meeting held on September 19 last year.’
As has been mentioned a couple of times, another clause entitling the agent to a €6m penalty if a €60m offer is made is talked of again. Record say if a guaranteed €60m offer was made and then rejected, and Sporting had to pay that €6m penalty, then Gyökeres’s price would rise to his €100m clause.
Regarding claims of Jorge Mendes getting involved and trying to save the day, Record report: ‘This situation, according to our findings, came to the attention of Hasan Çetinkaya and his peers, who expressed their discontent with what they consider to be an attempt at interference.’
Clearly, Record are getting their information directly from the Gyökeres camp.
Now it’s time to see if Arsenal make a fresh attempt. Something has to give here for things to move forward, and the player’s camp continuing to put all their eggs in the Arsenal basket still feels very risky.
