Gabriel Martinelli says Viktor Gyokeres could do something now that even Thierry Henry never did

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Gabriel Martinelli has high hopes for how the remainder of the season could look for Arsenal’s Viktor Gyokeres.

Things are starting to click for Gyokeres and Martin Odegaard at Arsenal, which could be the answer to getting the Swede scoring freely.

Mikel Arteta’s summer signing hasn’t, by any means, started the season poorly, scoring three goals in his opening six Premier League appearances.

That being said, by Gyokeres’ standards, the striker is flagging, as after scoring 97 goals over the previous two seasons, the 27-year-old’s bar is incredibly high.

Gyokeres has high demands of himself, having set the tone during his time at Sporting CP, but one of his Arsenal teammates thinks the forward will end the season with another blistering tally.

• READ MORE: Pundit says Viktor Gyokeres looks like he’s doing exactly what Thierry Henry did after signing for Arsenal

Gabriel Martinelli thinks Viktor Gyokeres can hit 40 goals this season

Gyokeres won the Gerd Muller Trophy at the 2025 Ballon d’Or awards for his free-scoring season at Sporting, where he scored 54 times for the Portuguese champions.

Being one of the best strikers in the world, Arsenal have high hopes for what the summer signing will bring to North London.

Speaking after Arsenal’s win over Olympiacos, Gabriel Martinelli insisted that he believes the striker could hit as many as ‘40 goals a season’ in red and white. 

“He’s been scoring some goals, we are really happy with him. We trust him, we know his qualities, he’s one of the top strikers in the world right now,” Martinelli said in the mixed zone.

“We are going to try to give him the ball as much as possible to make him score, I don’t know, 30, 40 goals a season.”

Martinelli and the Arsenal squad have faith that Gyokeres can become one of Arsenal’s greatest goalscorers in history, with a 40-goal season quite the achievement.

No player has scored 40 or more goals for the Gunners since the 1934/35 season, when Ted Drake found the net 44 times.

Even Thierry Henry has never scored 40, which tells the tale of how impressive Gyokeres will have to be to hit the milestone.

• READ MORE: Arsenal legend Thierry Henry names the one record he holds that will ‘never be beaten’

Thierry Henry’s highest-scoring season at Arsenal

Most strikers in world football aspire to leave a goalscoring legacy like Henry’s.

Now sporting the Frenchman’s famous number 14 shirt at Arsenal, Gyokeres will certainly hope to make his time in N5 count, just as Henry did. 

For everything that Henry achieved at Arsenal, he never actually hit the 40-goal in one season milestone, falling one short in the 2003/04 season, netting 39.

The 2003/04 season was Henry’s highest scoring campaign at Arsenal, his second being the 33 goals he scored in 2005/06 to bid farewell to Highbury in style.

Martinelli thinks Gyokeres can reach a land that Henry never ventured, which says all that needs to be known about how highly the Swede is rated.