Arsenal’s £34million acquisition of Christos Tzolis from Club Brugge can be easily compared to a signing from last summer.
Viktor Gyokeres joined from Sporting CP this time last year but it quickly became apparent to Arsenal fans which games he was more effective in.
11 of his 14 Premier League goals came against bottom-half sides.
The pattern had already been visible in Portugal, where his goals largely came against the lower two-thirds of the Primeira Liga rather than the top sides.
The top of the Portuguese league, including sides like Porto and Benfica, actually aligns reasonably well with some of Europe’s big five leagues, so it was an interesting data point to flag.
Give us your wildest Christos Tzolis prediction for his debut season at Arsenal👀
So it’s worth looking at how Tzolis, coming from a similar-level league in Europe, fares against top opposition.
Christos Tzolis fares really well against top sides in Belgium
According to data compiled by Billy Carpenter, Tzolis in the last two seasons of the Belgian Pro League Champions’ Playoffs (so against Belgium’s top teams only) produced 16 goals and 15 assists in just 20 starts.
That’s 31 goal contributions against the best sides in Belgium. Now again, that may not perfectly align with the Premier League, but the direction of the data point is completely different.
Gyokeres feasted on weaker opposition and struggled against stronger sides, a trend that has continued in England.
Tzolis, meanwhile, did his damage against the best teams in his league.
That is a fundamentally more encouraging pattern for a player joining Arsenal, who dropped 19 points against the five teams that finished directly below them.
Who does Christos Tzolis remind you of? Is he anything like Arsenal star Bukayo Saka?
There’s an argument that the reason Arsenal brought in Gyokeres was exactly that: to score against the lower sides. And the fact that he helped them to a Premier League title suggests that it worked.
But they dearly missed Kai Havertz who spent most of the season sidelined, and Gyokeres had little to no impact in the big games. That obviously wouldn’t have been part of the plan.
Christos Tzolis could offer the ‘individual actions’ Mikel Arteta wants
Primarily a left winger, Tzolis can play across the front three and regularly operates as a number ten for Greece, giving Arteta different options tactically.
He has quality and consistent delivery into the box with both feet, and was the set-piece specialist at Brugge, which will be immediately useful given Arsenal’s strength from corners.
After the Champions League final defeat to PSG, Arteta spoke about needing players capable of ‘individual actions’, moments of quality that break through an organised defensive structure.
Morgan Rogers was his primary target largely for that reason. Eberechi Eze was signed last summer for the same reason. Tzolis may well offer it too.
He has good decision-making, is not greedy on the ball, and moves it on quickly, offering the kind of associative play that fits Arsenal’s system.
How many goals and assists will Christos Tzolis end his debut season at Arsenal with?
He scored 22 goals and provided 29 assists last season👀
He did play in the Premier League before, of course, making his debut for Norwich against Arsenal in 2021. That perhaps came a bit too early for him, and he has since refined his game at Brugge, dominating the league since making the switch in 2024.
The question, as with all players coming in from outside the big five leagues, is whether he can match the intensity Arsenal demand.
If he can, Arsenal have a very interesting player at a very interesting price.
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