It was the third minute of stoppage time as Piero Hincapie lifted a ball forward, hanging it up in the air just the other side of the halfway line.

It’s not the kind of service that Thierry Henry or Dennis Bergkamp would have appreciated, but it was right up the street for the man who was wearing Arsenal’s No 14 shirt and leading the line.

Viktor Gyokeres did what he did all night in Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Atletico Madrid: backing in before planting his feet, the Sweden striker wedged his body between the defender and the ball. It was classic, old-school centre-forward play.

Frustrated, Marc Pubill climbed all over the 27-year-old and committed a foul, allowing Arsenal to get up the pitch and run down the clock.

Myles Lewis-Skelly, who had been withdrawn 20 minutes earlier, raced from the dugout to applaud Gyokeres, and thousands of Arsenal fans joined in.

“Another free kick in favour of Viktor Gyokeres,” Jon Champion, the commentator for the UK broadcaster Amazon Prime, said. “What a night he’s had.”

“Immense” was the word Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta used to describe a No 9 performance that felt like a throwback to another era. Forget the modern trend of strikers rarely straying beyond the width of the penalty area, Gyokeres spent the evening running the channels, dragging the Atletico defenders out of position, bullying them with his physicality and generally making a nuisance of himself.

He covered 10.56km, the third-highest distance of any player on the pitch and more than anyone else in an Arsenal shirt. Aggressive and selfless, Gyokeres provided a constant out-ball that enabled Arsenal to get up the pitch quickly, whether he was playing with his back to goal or stretching the Atletico defence by sprinting in behind.

David Raya (kicking out of his hands as well as off the floor), Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel, Leandro Trossard and Declan Rice all played longer balls towards Gyokeres – and, crucially, the Arsenal striker made the ball stick more often than not.

That’s something that hasn’t happened nearly enough this season. The Athletic reported after the narrow 1-0 victory over Newcastle United at the end of last month that Gyokeres has a turnover rate (possessions lost as a share of total touches) of 42 per cent, the highest of any centre-forward who has played at least 900 minutes.

Why Gyokeres was so much more effective against Atletico is hard to know. Perhaps the defenders for the Spanish side weren’t as physical as their Premier League counterparts. Maybe he was buoyed by his two goals and an assist against Fulham on Saturday. Or was this just a simple case of Gyokeres rising to the occasion and delivering on Arteta’s pre-match promise that his team would play “like beasts”?

Whatever was motivating him, Gyokeres produced one of his best performances for Arsenal. “You could see the reaction from the crowd every time he had the ball,” Arteta told reporters after the game. “His work rate and what he’s giving the team is just incredible. He’s the first one to set the tone, the rhythm, and the habits that he shows when we don’t have the ball.”

That support and encouragement from the Arsenal fans was evident early on. In the 12th minute, Gyokeres pinned David Hancko close to the touchline and laid the ball off to Ben White. It wasn’t anything spectacular but it was good play and appreciated by the supporters.

Moments later, Trossard clipped a pass from deep inside his own half that Gyokeres ran onto in the left channel, outpacing Robin Le Normand — a player he tormented in the first half — to win a corner that was greeted with huge cheers.

Six minutes later, and in a sign of his growing confidence, Gyokeres pinned Hancko again — this time from nothing more than a clearance into the right channel by Raya — and backheeled the ball to Eberechi Eze. Diego Simeone, the Atletico manager, was furious with Hancko for not winning that duel but Gyokeres had used his body intelligently.

The combination of Saliba’s slide-rule pass and Gyokeres’ bright movement in the lead-up to Bukayo Saka’s match-winning goal was a much more refined passage of play – a straight ball and a diagonal run that exposed Hancko’s poor positioning.

The longer the game went on, the clearer it became that Atletico couldn’t handle Gyokeres’ power. A poor clearance from Saliba at the start of the second half ended with Gyokeres drawing a foul from Le Normand by expertly protecting the ball again.

Nothing was a lost cause for Gyokeres, even if it meant risking injury. In the image below, he collided with Jan Oblak, the Atletico goalkeeper, after chasing a ball from Rice that was slightly overhit.

Sandwiched between another couple of excellent examples of back-to-goal centre-forward play, Gyokeres had a wonderful opportunity to double Arsenal’s lead. Hincapie’s cross ran perfectly into his path but Gyokeres — and these are the moments when you feel his technique lets him down — lifted the ball over the bar.

On another day, that squandered chance might have led to a different reaction from the crowd, but Gyokeres had already won them over with his tireless running and impressive hold-up play.

“He was the best player for Arsenal,” Daniel Sturridge, the former Liverpool striker, said in his punditry role for Amazon Prime after the game. “He caused so many problems and took the stress off the defence. When you launch it up top and think: ‘Can it stick? Can you get hold of it for us? Can you advance us up the field?’, he did it all for them.

“Those are the performances that define top players. He’s been questioned all season, but the performance he put in tonight was a clear reason he was signed.”

In the 80th minute, he was at it again, receiving another long ball from Raya, turning Pubill and drawing a foul that resulted in the defender being booked.

For Gyokeres, who has been much-maligned this season, and may not even have been playing but for Kai Havertz’s injury problems, it was a night to cherish.