Benjamin Šeško vs Viktor Gyökeres
Two right-footed centre-forwards who made their Premier League debuts in the same game in August 2025, three weeks after Arsenal chose Gyökeres and eight days after Šeško signed for Manchester United.
By the Oddsivio teamLast reviewed Stats updated
Last season · club and country together · official matches
Who does what?
Viktor Gyökeres created more chances last season, and they were level on goals, with assists too close to call. That said, Benjamin Šeško completed a higher share of passes (69% vs 66%).
Worth knowing: Viktor Gyökeres had 4,381 minutes to Benjamin Šeško's 2,175 last season; the bigger sample is the steadier one.
What separates them
2 of 4 pass both our tests: a big enough gap, and sure enough to hold.
- Šeško
- Gyökeres
- Typical forwards
- Goals per 90Level0.5012 goals0.5326 goals
Too small a gap against typical forwards to name a leader.
- Chances created per 90Gyökeres led0.512 chances0.946 chances
About 90% more chances created: about 13 more over 30 full matches.
Held up next season: about 7 in 10
- Assists per 90Too close to call0.041 assist0.147 assists
Not sure enough to name a leader.
- Pass completion share of passes completedŠeško led69%50%100%66%
Pass completion depends a lot on role and team.
Held up next season: about 7 in 10
Per 90 = per 90 minutes played, so different minutes compare fairly.
Does it hold up?
Without penalties
Too close to call (12 goals to 21).
How they play · volume, not a lead
Benjamin Šeško shot more (2.6 vs 1.8 per 90) and won more duels (4.4 vs 3.1 per 90) last season.
Why this comparison
The comparison started as a choice. In the summer of 2025 Arsenal wanted a centre-forward, and ESPN reported that November that they had scouted Benjamin Šeško extensively and held talks with his agent before deciding on the more experienced and proven option, Viktor Gyökeres, who signed from Sporting on 26 July. Šeško's move took two more weeks. Newcastle and Manchester United both bid for him in the first days of August, AFP reported, citing Bild, and he chose United, signing a contract to June 2030 on 9 August. His agent, Elvis Bašanović, told Slovenia's POP TV that United had been Šeško's wish for several years and that their first contact with United came in 2018, when Šeško was 15.
On 17 August, eight days after Šeško signed, both played their first Premier League game, United against Arsenal at Old Trafford, and the comparison has followed them ever since, loudest when the clubs met again in January 2026. Gyökeres's first Premier League season ended with 14 league goals and the title for Arsenal; Šeško's ended with 11, nine of them scored between January and May 2026 after Ruben Amorim had been sacked, and United third. In October 2026 Gyökeres broke a Nations League record that Šeško had shared.
Every number · last season
| ŠeškoBenjamin Šeško | Stat | GyökeresViktor Gyökeres |
|---|---|---|
2,175 | Minutes | 4,381 |
36 | Matches | 65 |
46.18Rotation · 40 club games · as of 2026-10-12 | Current squad importance | 43.88Backup · 40 club games · as of 2026-10-12 |
0.5012 in total | goals per 90 | 0.5326 in total |
0.041 in total | assists per 90 | 0.147 in total |
0.512 in total | chances created per 90 | 0.946 in total |
2.663 in total | shots per 90 | 1.888 in total |
1.639 in total | take-ons tried per 90 | 1.365 in total |
0.26 in total | tackles per 90 | 0.210 in total |
0.24 in total | interceptions per 90 | 0.13 in total |
4.4107 in total | duels won per 90 | 3.1151 in total |
69% | pass completion | 66% |
Goals and assists are counted from match events; the other counts come from the provider's detailed match stats. Squad importance describes the current club role over its recent club-game window; it is independent of the comparison window.
Have they played each other?
By 7 October 2026 they had played each other five times in competitive games, twice for Slovenia and Sweden and three times for their clubs, and the live list below holds all of them. Šeško's side won two, drew two and lost one, and the two have never been team-mates. Their first meeting was in the Nations League in Solna on 27 September 2022, when Šeško, 19, volleyed Slovenia ahead after 28 minutes; Emil Forsberg equalised, and the 1–1 sent Sweden down to League C. Gyökeres, then a Coventry City player, came on with 20 minutes left. In the Champions League in January 2025 Šeško scored early for RB Leipzig, Gyökeres came off the bench to equalise for Sporting with 15 minutes left, and Yussuf Poulsen won it for Leipzig three minutes later: the only meeting in which both scored. Both of Šeško's goals against Gyökeres's teams came before Gyökeres was on the pitch. On 17 August 2025, the opening weekend at Old Trafford, Riccardo Calafiori's header won it for Arsenal, and the debutants were never on the pitch together: Gyökeres was replaced after an hour and Šeško came on five minutes later. In Ljubljana in September 2025, the opening game of their World Cup qualifying group, both played all 90 minutes for the only time; Gyökeres set up Yasin Ayari's goal and Žan Vipotnik equalised for Slovenia in the 90th minute, 2–2. At the Emirates in January 2026 both came off the bench, Gyökeres after 58 minutes and Šeško after 81, and Matheus Cunha's shot from outside the area three minutes from time won it 3–2 for United. The list can't show the two Slovenia–Sweden games in which one or both of them did not play. Gyökeres was an unused substitute in Ljubljana in June 2022, when Šeško came on at half-time of Slovenia's 0–2 defeat. Neither played the return qualifier in Solna in November 2025, which ended 1–1: Gyökeres had been injured at Burnley on 1 November and Šeško at Tottenham a week later. Their clubs next meet on 19 December 2026, Arsenal v Manchester United at the Emirates, on a date television can still move, with the return at Old Trafford on 27 February 2027. Slovenia and Sweden are in different groups of the 2026–27 Nations League, whose play-offs in March 2027 pair League B sides only with teams from League A or League C, so another competitive Slovenia–Sweden game depends on the draw for EURO 2028 qualifying, due in Belfast on 6 December 2026.
Looking up their matches…
What the numbers don't show
Over the two years to 7 October 2026, our line-up records place every one of Šeško's minutes and 99% of Gyökeres's at centre-forward. The difference is in how each plays the position. Šeško is the taller, 1.95 m to 1.89 m on the Premier League's measure, and in the 2025–26 league season he won 64 of his 121 aerial duels to Gyökeres's 30 of 97; in Adrian Clarke's count for the Premier League, ten of the 39 goals Šeško scored for Leipzig were headers, against five of Gyökeres's 97 for Sporting. When they signed, Manchester United's director of football, Jason Wilcox, described Šeško's "electrifying pace and the ability to physically dominate defenders", and Mikel Arteta called Gyökeres "a quick and powerful presence up front".
The 2025/26 figures on the card set 4,381 minutes against 2,175, and most of the gap is games Šeško never had: Arsenal's 13 Champions League games, in a season without European football for United, and Sweden's play-offs and World Cup, which took Gyökeres to ten competitive games for his country while Slovenia had no World Cup to play. In the league Gyökeres started 26 of his 36 games; Šeško started 17 of his 30, missed a month after hurting his knee in November and scored four of his 11 goals as a substitute, among them the one against Aston Villa in March 2026. Penalties move the goals rows too. Gyökeres scored three league penalties that season, and five of his 26 goals for club and country were from the spot in our records; Šeško took none in a game, and the card's line without penalties shows the goals row with them taken out. On the Premier League's minutes, Šeško scored a league goal every 149 minutes in 2025–26 and Gyökeres every 159, or every 203 without his penalties.
Estimated value
Viktor Gyökeres's Oddsivio estimated value is higher: €67m (#54 of 9,335 players valued) to Benjamin Šeško's €58m (#83 of 9,335 players valued). Šeško's estimate dipped 21% since season start; Gyökeres's estimate dipped 35% since season start.Oddsivio estimated value — a model estimate from recent performance data, not betting advice.
Benjamin Šeško
Oddsivio estimated value
€58m
−21% since season start
#83 of 9,335 players valued#46 of 495 in the Premier League
Viktor Gyökeres
Oddsivio estimated value
€67m
−35% since season start
#54 of 9,335 players valued#32 of 495 in the Premier League
Questions fans ask
Who is better, Šeško or Gyökeres?
The page leaves the verdict to the figures at the top, worked out for whichever window you pick. What the figures can't weigh is age: Šeško was born on 31 May 2003 and Gyökeres on 4 June 1998, so the almost five years between them make it a question of where each will be as much as where each is. Gyökeres has the longer list of prizes. He won the league with Sporting in 2024 and 2025 and with Arsenal in 2026, won the Gerd Müller Trophy for his 2024–25 season, when he scored 54 goals in 52 games for Sporting, and came 15th in that year's Ballon d'Or vote. Šeško won three Austrian titles and the 2022 Austrian Cup with Red Bull Salzburg and the German Super Cup with Leipzig in August 2023, and was voted Slovenia's footballer of the year for 2022 in the poll run by the sports daily Ekipa. Neither made the 30-man list for the 2026 Ballon d'Or, published on 8 September 2026.
Šeško vs Gyökeres stats: who scored more in their first Premier League season?
Gyökeres, by 14 goals to 11 on the Premier League's count for 2025–26, in more minutes: 2,230 in 36 games, 26 of them starts, to Šeško's 1,635 in 30, 17 of them starts. Three of Gyökeres's 14 were penalties, and each added one league assist. In all competitions Gyökeres scored 21 times for Arsenal, five of them in the Champions League, and Šeško 12 for United, the other one in the FA Cup. Gyökeres scored twice in his first home league game, a 5–0 win over Leeds on 23 August 2025, and ended the season in the Champions League final, which Arsenal lost to Paris Saint-Germain on penalties after a 1–1 draw; he scored Arsenal's first kick in the shoot-out. Šeško's season came late: he had two league goals in his first 16 league games, then scored nine in 14 from a brace at Burnley on 7 January to a goal against Liverpool on 3 May, his last game of the season, and finished level with Bryan Mbeumo as United's top league scorer.
Have Šeško and Gyökeres played against each other?
Yes, five times by 7 October 2026, all competitive: the 2022 Nations League and a qualifier for the 2026 World Cup in September 2025 between Slovenia and Sweden, the January 2025 Champions League game between RB Leipzig and Sporting, and both Manchester United–Arsenal league games of 2025–26. Šeško scored twice in those games and Gyökeres once, with an assist; neither was booked. Šeško played 304 minutes of the five and Gyökeres 237, but one or other usually started on the bench or went off early, so they shared the pitch for about 154 minutes plus stoppage time, and only once did both start.
Why did Arsenal sign Gyökeres instead of Šeško?
Arsenal never explained the choice between the two in a statement, and their announcement of Gyökeres's signing does not mention Šeško, but the reporting points to experience, and Gyökeres also cost less than United went on to pay for Šeško. ESPN's account, published in November 2025, was that Arsenal scouted Šeško extensively and talked to his agent, then chose the more proven striker. Sporting's filing to Portugal's market regulator put the fee Arsenal would pay at €65.8 million plus up to €10.3 million in add-ons, while the Press Association reported United paying Leipzig €76.5 million for Šeško plus €8.5 million in add-ons, a figure United's announcement did not confirm. United, for their part, said that all of their data analysis and research had concluded that Šeško had the qualities and personality to thrive at the club.
Why had neither Šeško nor Gyökeres started a Premier League game by October 2026?
Up to 7 October 2026 neither had started a league game in 2026–27, for different reasons. Šeško hurt his shin in May 2026, missed United's last three league games of 2025–26 and the whole of pre-season, and came on as a substitute in all four of his league games, scoring with a header at Everton on 6 September, while Matheus Cunha started at centre-forward. He started and scored in the Champions League against Sabah on 10 September, then felt the shin again after starting the League Cup defeat by Brighton on 16 September. "We're not sure with Ben yet", Michael Carrick said after the Fulham game four days later, and Šeško then withdrew from Slovenia's squad. Gyökeres was fit but behind Kai Havertz, who started all five of Arsenal's league games. Gyökeres was an unused substitute in three of them and played 29 league minutes in the other two, and his two starts came against Napoli in the Champions League and Ipswich in the League Cup. Arsenal signed no centre-forward in the summer, and Havertz was injured playing for Germany on 24 September.
Who holds the Nations League record for scoring in consecutive games, Gyökeres or Šeško?
Gyökeres, since October 2026. UEFA's records had five consecutive Nations League games with a goal as the competition's best run, shared by Šeško, whose run went from June 2022 to September 2024 and ended with a hat-trick against Kazakhstan, and Serbia's Aleksandar Mitrović. Gyökeres, who began his run in October 2024, scored in a sixth straight game in Zenica against Bosnia and Herzegovina on 2 October 2026 and a seventh in Bucharest against Romania three days later. After the Zenica game he told the Swedish news agency TT that it was a good record and that he could probably keep breaking it. By UEFA's count on 6 October 2026 he had 14 Nations League goals to Šeško's eight. Their World Cup qualifying group in 2025 went badly for both countries: Slovenia finished third and Sweden fourth, behind Switzerland and Kosovo, but Sweden reached the 2026 finals through the play-offs, which their Nations League group win of 2024 had earned them, starting with a Gyökeres hat-trick in the 3–1 win over Ukraine, and went out to France in the round of 32.