Arsenal forward on a high after two goals at Spurs, with his manager hoping he can stay on form against Chelsea
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hen Viktor Gyökeres fixes you with those piercing blue eyes and that inscrutable look, it is possible to get the wrong impression. “He wants to kill you,” Mikel Arteta said with a smile. “He’s got that eye. When he looks at you, he can look a bit intimidating.”
The Arsenal manager was in relaxed mood as he looked forward to Sunday’s Premier League meeting with Chelsea at the Emirates and not because he almost always seems to get the better of them. At one point, Arteta threw a bottle of water at a journalist who had a frog in his throat as he asked his question; disappointingly, the cap was on. At another, he joked about his press officer’s sprawling mansion in Kent and how jealous he was of him. The pressure of the title race is supposed to be consuming the ultra-intense Arteta. Not on this evidence.
Arteta wanted to be clear that Gyökeres is a lovely guy; open and cool. The centre-forward is an assassin only when he steps on to the pitch. And the theme, really, with the Swede, who signed last summer from Sporting for £55m plus £9m in add-ons, was love. How he has won the affection of his teammates. How the Arsenal No 14 shirt – once the property of Thierry Henry – has come to sit more easily and attractively on his shoulders.
