Morning all. Our reward for beating Ipswich on Tuesday night is a fourth round Carabao Cup tie against League Two Fleetwood Town who play at Highbury Stadium. Rings a bell. I realised I had no idea whatsoever where Fleetwood Town is, and it appears to be north of Blackpool on the west coast, so it’s a bit of a trek, I guess. It will be another good chance for Mikel Arteta to rotate his team, and as the game falls between a home clash with Everton and a trip to Liverpool, that’s probably pretty useful all things considered. Another opportunity for some youngsters like Max Dowman and Marli Salmon, and hopefully another chance for some more experienced players to get themselves up to speed. On that basis, Tuesday night was something of a mixed bag. I thought we got good stuff from Noni Madueke and Mikel Merino; Martin Zubimendi was asked to do a job at right-back because of our injury issues, so it’s hard to judge too much but he supported Noni well, and ended up with an assist to his name; while Bruno Guimaraes ran things well in midfield and only one player had more touches than his 82 – Marli Salmon with 84! In the front three though, things didn’t quite click for a couple of others. Eberechi Eze officially got an assist for Max Dowman’s opening goal, but in truth this one was more about what the 16 year old did with the ball from the dinked pass he received in midfield. Beyond that, Eze was involved plenty on the left, and did try to make things happen, but not much did. I think it’s fair to say he can do better than that. And then there’s Viktor Gyokeres up front. I have to be completely honest here, and say I find the relentless discourse around him quite tedious, but at the same time, I don’t think there is that level of conversation for no reason. What’s fascinating to me is the diversity of that discourse. There are some who go too far in their criticism, which prompts others to defend him. There are those who say he just needs service, but when he plays like he did on Tuesday, that doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny for me. It’s quite funny, we get a lot of comments here on the site and on the podcasts whenever we talk about him. Some think we’re too critical, that we apply a level of critique to him that is different from the way we talk about everyone else; some think we’re too lenient, that we make excuses for his lack of involvement or those moments when he catches the eye for the wrong reason. Football is all about opinions, of course, but I really can’t remember an Arsenal player who stretches the conversations around him to such extremes. He scored 21 goals last season, not to be sniffed at, and that contribution was important over the course of the campaign. Aspects of his game improved as time went on, but for me some of those improvements were because the bar had been set so low in his opening months. I want to make this clear, and it should go without saying: I want him to do well, I want all of our players to do well, because ultimately that means the team has a better chance of achieving its goals. But as fans we analyse and scrutinise, which is completely fair. I think our players, Gyokeres included, are well supported during games at home and away, but outside of that we’re not cheerleaders, and if we can’t discuss player performance, there’s something wrong. I recognise that this season he hasn’t played much. Just 190 minutes in all competitions, and 90 of those came against Ipswich. Only 12 minutes in the Premier League so far. Which is why on a night like Tuesday I want to see a player really determined to show the manager he deserves more, and while I don’t expect him to turn into vintage Bergkamp and start dropping deep and spraying passes around to all and sundry, I do want to see him compete properly, and I didn’t. Too often caught on his heels, too often looking like a man disgruntled with his situation rather than one scrapping to show he deserves to play more. The season is long, and things can change quickly. A door might open for him because of injury or suspension, and we’re going to need him, but right now I think it’s reasonable to have concerns about where we are with him and where he is with us. Fundamentally, I think his style of play is unsuited to this Arsenal team, and it feels like a problem. If it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be such a topic of conversation every time he plays or even when he doesn’t. Whichever side of the Gyokeres divide you’re on, or even if you exist somewhere in the middle, I don’t think anyone can say that right now everything is hunky dory with him and his situation. The question of how we come to terms with that is interesting too. Is this an issue for the manager and the coaching staff to deal with? Is there an onus on the player himself to do more? We’ve seen technically limited players at Arsenal before, but what they lack in that regard they make up for with workrate, physicality and endeavour, and to my eyes, we don’t get enough of that from him. Is there a psychological element at play here too? At Sporting he was the main man, the focal point of the attack, and he delivered goal after goal after goal for two seasons there. At Arsenal he’s clearly the second choice behind Kai Havertz, and I also think there’s some logic to the idea that in some cases the presence of Mikel Merino as an alternative to the German makes more sense. Is that something he’s struggling with? Did our public pursuit of Julian Alvarez play a part? We know players, and strikers in particular, thrive on confidence, and he’s low on that right now. He hasn’t scored a goal since May, his one shot on Tuesday night was a tame effort and the wrong choice, even if you can understand his desire to make an impact. We have 20 games between now and January, the earliest possible moment when Arteta and Arsenal can dip back into the market. My gut feeling is that if you can’t find the level raiser up front in the summer window, your chances of doing so in January are more slim (yeah Kroupi, I know, but Bournemouth might have something to say about that). I would like nothing more than to sit here and write about his excellent form and great goalscoring record, but until we find a way to make it work better than it is right now, the Gyokeres conversations are likely to continue throughout this season. For some extra reading this morning, Tim’s column touches on Bukayo Saka’s involvement in front of goal so far this season. Right, I’ll leave it there for now. We’ll have an Arsecast for you a bit later on today so stand-by for that. Until then, have a good one. The post The Gyokeres conversations will continue appeared first on Arseblog ... an Arsenal blog.