What Viktor Gyokeres did speaks volumes for Arsenal as Mikel Arteta unlocks his secret weapon

The touch map was out early. Viktor Gyokereshadn't done very much in the first half. It had not been 100 minutes in his Arsenalcareer and the doubters were surfacing and loud.

Arsenal were in control against Leeds United but had not really made much of an attacking statement. Their new striker was finding it hard to get into the game.

Mikel Arteta's men entered the break 2-0 up without their £60million striker doing much but the concerns may have started, ever so slightly, to grow. It is still the very infancy of Gyokeres as a Premier League player but the noise that followed him from Portugal - both positive and negative - was loud.

He has been cast as the answer to all of Arteta's problems,the 25 goal a season man needed for years, and a flat track bully who will struggle to do it in a much higher quality top flight. The reality is surely somewhere in the middle, but that is boring.

Gyokeres will not be able to score at the rate that he did at Sporting CP because these opponents are better and more physical. They are more organised and will find ways to limit Gyokeres that the Portuguese league simply could not.

But he is also too good to simply not score at all. This is still someone with immense strength and a strike powerful enough to beat goalkeepers before they can see the ball.

It has felt, for much of Gyokeres' first five appearances at Arsenal, that it is impossible not to be in one of these two camps. He is the best or he is useless. Pick your lane.

On Saturday, the outpouring of happiness, and maybe a slight bit of relief, seemed to show that Gyokeres knows this. There is too much attention on this guy, who has so much confidence and a track record that cannot be ignored, to think he is not aware of the expectations.

He will have it all to himself. Plug this monster into an elite team missing one piece of the jigsaw, and his weaknesses can be masked, and his strengths maximised.

This was not what Gyokeres looked like from his initial outings. He was undercooked in pre-season and far from full flow at Old Trafford last weekend.He has hardly played or trained with teammates in the past few months.

However, give him space to run into and even this form of Gyokeres will not pass it up. It is fitting that his first goal for Arsenal and in the Premier League was like this.

Against a promoted team, one much weaker than Gyokeres, it is only right that he should gallop into acres of open grass, cut inside onto his right foot, and smash it in. This is what he did for fun in Portugal.

His ability to punish those at the bottom was relentless.He still performed well against those similar to Sporting but the levels are different.

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Clubs facing relegation in Liga Portugal are closer to lower-half Championship ability than even the worst of the Premier League. How would Gyokeres deal with that step up? Well, by making the most of any freedom afforded to him.

Leeds offered Gyokeres a commodity he had been waiting for. When the left channel became vacant, he chased the ball down and sprang between two blues shirts. He created the gap needed to swing that hammer of a leg behind, thundering it is at the near post.

There is not too much that is cute about Gyokeres but there doesn't need to be. Here, he did exactly what Arsenal needed him to. He brutalised Leeds and took full advantage.

It does not matter that he did little in the buildup or failed to create. Questions around that fit will come further down the line when he faces an elite calibre of teams regularly. For now, finding a way to silence the premature critics meant a lot.

You could tell. His celebration was not one of a player making it 3-0 on a comfortable home evening against a newly promoted side. He let out a roar, showed off his iconic celebration, and revelled in the moment.

When he buried the last-minute penalty, it got another big reaction. He put his hands to his head and slicked back his hair. Martin Zubimendi went over to him and did the same.

Gyokeres said afterwards that it was a response to those who had joked about him doing the same in the Manchester United match. He is attuned to the pressure, demands, and eyeballs following him.

He knows what they are saying and that they are waiting for him to fall short. Scoring against Leeds in this manner and with a penalty will not prove a point but it is a starting point for a player with so much to give.