Haaland has a staggering 17 goals in 18 matches for club and country this season but that is nothing compared to Sporting striker Viktor Gyokeres, who has 24 goals in 20.

These are phenomenal numbers from the 26-year-old, who also boasts 45 goals in 43 Portuguese top-flight matches since moving to Sporting at the start of last season. But it is even more impressive given this is the same striker who struggled in the Championship as recently as four years ago.

On loan from Brighton, who tend to spot a talented player in Europe, Gyokeres went goalless in 11 second-tier appearances for Steve Cooper’s Swansea in the 2020-21 season.

Fresh from a promising loan spell at German second division side St Pauli, it was disappointing. The Swans spell was cut short midway through the campaign and he was handed another loan at Coventry City.

Three goals in 19 matches in the second half of the season led to a debate amongst the Coventry hierarchy: was he good enough to sign permanently or was he not worth the risk? That question seems silly now.

“I think you could have argued on both sides, to be honest,” former Coventry assistant manager Adi Viveash tells Sky Sports. “You could have said: is it a bit of a gamble?

“He went to Swansea with Steve Cooper on loan at the start of the season. The next time I saw him was when we played them in the Covid year. With all due respect, he never got a kick. Kyle McFadzean marked him out of the game!

“The loan in the second six months of that season, he still had the same frustrations with us. He was a very different player then to what he ended up leaving Coventry as. Not as strong, not as powerful. He could be a little bit shoved off the ball a bit.

“I didn’t feel he played the central role well then. He still wanted to drift into wide areas. Avoid a little bit of contact, I suppose, with his back to goal. That’s how it looked.”

The idea that Gyokeres was once a player easily barged off the ball is baffling considering his levels right now. His two Champions League goals this season have been remarkably similar: solo runs down the left, holding off and barging past a defender, then a clinical finish.

So what happened to that struggling striker, who has suddenly propelled himself to Haaland-esque levels now? When Gyokeres looks back at his career, he will look at Coventry making the loan deal permanent for less than £1m in the summer of 2021 as the springboard for his confidence.Share

This is a modal window.

Unsupported location

The video you are trying to watch cannot be viewed from your current country or locationTake a closer look at Viktor Gyokeres’ pick of his goals in the Championship for Coventry last season, with the striker now impressing for Sporting Lisbon

“It was almost as though you’d signed a different player,” recalls Viveash. “The next season he came in with the confidence of being bought by a team, and suddenly he’d been told that he was going to be the main man. And he looked like the main man.

“He built himself up, he’d obviously worked hard in the off-season in the gym, and the contacts with his back to goal? He started smashing centre-backs around in training! And it was a real eye-opener for all of us to go: ‘OK, this lad means business now’.”

Three goals in 30 Championship games became 38 goals in 91 matches in the next two seasons at Coventry. His 21 second-tier goals in the 2022-23 season not only caught the eye of Sporting – but nearly took the Sky Blues to the Premier League. Only a defeat to Luton Town in the Championship play-off final denied that reality, Gyokeres even got a classy assist for Coventry’s equaliser at Wembley.

“You know when someone’s getting good, don’t you?” says Viveash. “When the opposition want to talk about him. After every game, you went into the manager’s room and Vik was the name that was being mentioned.

“I don’t think anybody had seen a striker like that in the Championship. And he just improved all facets of his game.”Share

This is a modal window.

Unsupported location

The video you are trying to watch cannot be viewed from your current country or locationGyokeres set up Gustavo Hamer’s equaliser for Coventry in the Championship play-off final against Luton

Coventry was the team that made Gyokeres the all-round centre forward we see today. As seen in the first and last strikes against Estrela Amadora, similar to his two Champions League goals so far this season, the Swedish forward likes to attack or move off the left wing to get goalscoring chances.

“He scored a lot of goals coming off the left like this for St Pauli, a lot of goals,” recalls Viveash. “When he was playing as a No 9, we wanted him to trust that his team-mate was going to arrive in that left space and he could attack the front or the middle zones. In the end, he got some really good goals.

“So we tried to make it that he went right as well as left, so he sort of drifted along the front three.”