I am a regular watcher of the Championship and I saw this player play many times for Swansea and Coventry. He was alright but nothing special. He also was contracted with Brighton (before they became a top half team) and never managed to make a single Premier League appearance for them. For Brighton, he only managed to make the bench twice in any Premier League game.
He was loaned to Swansea in the Championship and failed to score a single goal for them.
He was loaned to the Bundesliga 2 and scored 7 goals in 19 appearances. The 2nd Bundesliga is roughly on par with the Liga Portugal or likely worse. At this time (21 years old) he was rated at £500k by Transfermarkt.
He moved to Coventry for a small sum of 1 million euros and in his first season, was again only a bench option.
After 2023, his performance began to pick up tremendously and he went from a player who could not even make the bench at Brighton and Swansea to a prolific scorer in the Championship, becoming arguably the best striker in the league in the space of a year, preceding which, he was unable to make a single Premier League appearance for Brighton or even be an effective striker in the 2nd league of Germany.
The first time Viktor Gyokeres played top division football is at the age of 25.
At the age of 25, which in my opinion, is an unusually late age to show unbelievable sudden improvement, he began to become one of the highest performing strikers in Europe, scoring 29 goals in one Liga Portugal season. He now has 16 goals in 10 appearances in this current season.
In my opinion, there are few explanations for how a player that was not even good enough to perform for the likes of Swansea, St Pauli and not even good enough to make the bench at Brighton has suddenly become a £70 million rated striker at Sporting.
For me it is hard to explain how a player goes from being poor or average to one of the best strikers in Europe in the space of a year. Whilst there are sometimes remarkable cases in which players suddenly become elite footballers, they are extremely rare.
Therefore, it is my strong belief that this player is a drug cheat.
For reference, here are his physical stats from his performance in the CL :
Top speed : 34.55km/hr
Average : 34.14 avg. per match!!!!!!!
34.55km/hr is generally considered to be around the highest echelon of top speed, usually we do not see players surpassing 35 or 36, this puts him as one of the fastest strikers in the world, but the most shocking thing, as highlighted, is the fact his average speed (likely referring to any high intensity sprint in game) is almost the same as his actual top recorded speed. So roughly every time he makes a high intensity sprint he is almost reaching his top speed.
His ridiculously strong physical performance along with his very unique and fast rise to elite level whilst previously being a 2nd division level footballer, in my opinion, suggests irregularities.
As my opinion is based purely on speculation, I don't proclaim it as fact and it is purely my opinion, however, I would be wary that when this player moves to a league with more stringent drug testing his performance may decline significantly.
So I believe we should avoid signing him lest his performance unexplainably decreases when he moves to a top league.
