Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Sporting CP, Sporting Lisbon, Transfers, Champions League
Ryan Smart
Topics: Sporting CP, Sporting Lisbon, Transfers, Champions League
Viktor Gyokeres has dropped a clear hint over the club he wants to join amid major transfer interst in the Sporting Lisbon star.
Gyokeres has smashed in 32 goals in all competitions this season, and eyebrows were raised when he was left on the bench for Wednesday's Champions League defeat to previously winless RB Leipzig.
The official reason given was that the 26-year-old was struggling for fitness, meaning he only played the final 35 minutes in Leipzig.
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He was able to score goal number 32 of the season, but Yussuf Poulsen scored a late winner for the hosts.
Gyokeres has previously stated that he intends to finish the season in Lisbon and then make a decision over his long-term future in the summer.
That future increasingly appears to be away from Portugal, with the 26-year-old one of the best strikers on the planet at the current moment.
He has been linked with moves to Arsenal, Barcelona and Manchester United - the latter of whom are currently managed by Gyokeres' former Sporting boss Ruben Amorim.
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And the Sweden international has dropped a clear hint over which club he would like to join.
Speaking to UEFA's website last month, Gyokeres revealed that both Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo were his inspirations growing up.
He explained: "The players I looked up to were Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Cristiano Ronaldo.
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"It's about how they performed on the pitch. They went the extra mile, which impressed me. I wanted to do similar things on the pitch."
Ibrahimovic and Ronaldo both played for United throughout their careers, with Ronaldo establishing himself as one of the world's best players before moving to Real Madrid for a record £80 million fee in 2009.
Ibrahimovic, meanwhile, signed for United on a free transfer in 2016 and scored 28 goals in all competitions in his first and only full season at the club, which was curtailed by a serious knee injury suffered in April.