{"id":1111,"date":"2026-05-06T09:34:43","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:34:43","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:34:43","slug":"shearer-selects-exceptional-gunners-star-for-special-praise-after-atletico-madrid-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/?p=1111","title":{"rendered":"Shearer selects &#8216;exceptional&#8217; Gunners star for special praise after Atletico Madrid win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div><!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p>Legendary Premier League striker Alan Shearer has picked out Arsenal star Viktor Gyokeres for his \u201cexceptional\u201d display against Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>Bukayo Saka scored the only goal of the game to give Arsenal a place in their first Champions League final for 20 years as they overcame Atleti 1-0 on the night and 2-1 on aggregate in their semi-final.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Arsenal<\/strong> have had a great week as they took back control of the Premier League title race and ensured they could do a famous double when they face either Bayern Munich or Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final.<\/p>\n<p>Summer signing Gyokeres has received lots of criticism this season for not providing enough in his overall performances but he produced a wonderful display for the team against Atletico Madrid.<\/p>\n<p>Former England striker Shearer picked out Gyokeres for special praise after noticing the Swede giving the Atletico Madrid centre-backs a torrid time all evening.<\/p>\n<p>Shearer said on <em>Prime Video<\/em>: \u201cApart from that miss his centre forward play has been superb.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ:<span> <\/span>Four games in 25 days stand between Champions League finalists Arsenal and unfathomable glory<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cHis running off the ball, his hold up play for his team, taking knocks all night and making runs\u2026 he really has been exceptional.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s exactly the type of performance his team needed from him and something to build on. He offered Arsenal so much tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Shearer: Arsenal had to fight and scrap for every ball<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>On Arsenal\u2019s overall performance, Shearer added: \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a vintage performance but it didn\u2019t have to be.<\/p>\n<p><smartframe-embed customer-id=\"84d65181a95c24c4fea73e44b4e27a17\" image-id=\"ltKDYp9Aw6Go\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 100%;\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt had to be a performance to get them to a Champions League and that\u2019s exactly what they delivered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey had to fight and scrap for every ball tonight and when they got the chance to score they did. That was enough to get them through to the final, so well done Arsenal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ NEXT:<span> <\/span>Rooney, Shearer make same Arsenal claim in PL title prediction \u2013 \u2018I\u2019ve been strong on this\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re so close to making history now, they have one final and three league games to do something this club has never done and win an incredible double.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very, very promising position and this will do a lot for their confidence and belief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Former Chelsea and Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge was also impressed by Gyokeres\u2019 display and had him down as the \u201cbest player\u201d on the night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sturridge said<\/strong>: \u201cThe drive and tenacity of the players (is what impressed most). Lewis-Skelly was brilliant, controlling pace and the play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut Gyokeres was the best player tonight for me. He took so much pressure off the defenders, when you launch it up top thinking can it stick, can you hold it up for us?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe did it all for them. Those are the performances that define top players.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ NEXT: Simeone makes incredible Arsenal claim after Atletico Madrid are beaten<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!-- Article End --><\/div>\n<p><script>\n        !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n        {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n        n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n        if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n        n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n        t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);\n        s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n        'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n        fbq('init', '1399787394855675');\n        fbq('track', 'PageView');\n    <\/script><script>\n        !function(e,n,t){var o=e.getElementsByTagName(n)(0);e.getElementById\n    <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legendary Premier League striker Alan Shearer has picked out Arsenal star Viktor Gyokeres for his \u201cexceptional\u201d display against Atletico Madrid. Bukayo Saka scored the only [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esport.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}