Dateline: opening game of last season. Venue: Stadium of Light. A ball is played into Viktor Gyokeres, 35 yards from goal. The Black Cats’ defenders have allowed the Sweden international to turn – it’s a big mistake.
He does so, brushing off one who is left trailing in his wake. He sidesteps another and unleashes a blistering right-foot drive into the bottom corner with real venom. “That,” shouts co-commentator, Don Goodman, “is brilliant.” Ask any Sky Blues supporter about Gyokeres and they will purr.
If his 22 goals last season for Mark Robins aren’t enough to convince, the 29 he’s bagged in 38 games this season for Sporting Lisbon is positive proof that the forward is one of European football’s hottest properties. Little wonder. My wife, a Sky Blues’ season-ticket holder, said her dad, Ken – also a season-ticket holder – hadn’t seen anyone as powerful since Cyrille Regis was bouncing defenders off his toned torso towards the back end of the 80s. At that stage of his career, Regis was a supreme physical specimen and it appears that Gyokeres is similar.
Mark Robins and his recruitment team spotted something when they decided to give the striker a chance following an injury-ravaged loan spell at Swansea City. It was Brighton who had first seen something they liked in the second tier of Swedish football. Whatever impression the forward left was a good one. The Sky Blues had to dig deep to afford the £1m fee.
They’ve already banked £20m from Sporting. If he moves on again, they’ll be even more in credit. Gyokeres clearly forged a close relationship with Coventry boss Robins, the forward paid tribute to him on several occasions. In return, he was fêted as ‘irreplaceable’ and ‘one of a kind.’
It will be to the club’s eternal regret that Gyokeres wasn’t fully fit during their showpiece play-off game in the final against Luton Town.
The Swede gave an uncharacteristically below-par performance only for his boss to reveal after the final whistle that he was carrying a groin problem. By that final whistle at Wembley, no player had been involved in more Championship goals than Gyokeres and no player at that level had carried the ball further upfield, either. Perhaps the final word should go to an opposition manager. Gary Rowett has seen and done everything in the Championship during the past decade.
He was floored by Gyokeres when Millwall went down to a 1-0 defeat 14 months ago. The then Lions’ boss said: “He looked a handful all night against us. You can’t leave him space with defenders because he’s very, very good at utilising that space. I just thought that he looked an immense threat.”