Arsene Wenger, the former Arsenal manager, has expressed criticism towards Gabriel Jesus, stating that the attacker needs to enhance his consistency to be regarded as a ‘top player.’
Arsenal secured the signing of Gabriel Jesus from Manchester City prior to the 2022/23 season, fans were thrilled,
but the Brazilian striker’s goal-scoring performance has fallen short of the initial hype, leading to scrutiny and criticism.
Despite this, Jesus shows his class early on, scoring six goals and providing three assists in his first nine league matches, playing a significant role in Arsenal’s title contention last season.
However, this term, he has netted just four times in the English top flight. The former City man has also missed a total of 184 days through injury since arriving at the Emirates.
According to recent reports, Arsenal have narrowed down their shortlist of strikers to just five names, with Brighton’s Evan Ferguson, Sporting’s Victor Gyokeres,
Brentford’s Ivan Toney, Napoli’s Victor Osimhen and RB Leipzig’s Benjamin Sesko all being considered ahead of the summer transfer window.
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Sitting down with Freddie Ljungberg for Viaplay Sports, Wenger compared his squad to the current crop of players and claimed Arteta was lacking a Thierry Henry-esque figure while pointing to Jesus’ struggles in front of goal.
Wenger said:
‘There’s a lot [of similarities between current Arsenal side and his team], [Martin] Odegaard and [Dennis] Bergkamp…
‘They have no Thierry Henry at the moment because I think Gabriel Jesus is injured a lot.
‘There are more goals in him than what you see at the moment.
‘What the top, top player doesn’t tolerate is [being] in and out.
‘The guys who make history are the guys who are consistently there.
‘[Cristiano] Ronaldo and [Lionel] Messi, they play for 15 years, 50 to 60 games per year.’
Jesus was deployed out wide in Arsenal’s goalless stalemate with City at the weekend and said after the game that he was more than happy to play out of position to aid the club’s title push.
‘The way I am, I try everything I can to help my team. It doesn’t matter where I play, I always try to do my best,’ Jesus said.
‘I did it [against City]. I was very deep, normally I am not that deep, but I had to play as the winger.
‘I think I help my team playing like this. And then also, when we there [in attack], I created some chances. I could do a little bit better, but football is like this sometimes.’
He added: This is the most beautiful part of the season, you try everything to win titles.
‘It’s the Premier League, it’s a tough league and anything can happen. It is only two points the difference [with Liverpool] and then we have a very good goal difference.
‘Everything counts at the end, but there are still a lot of games.’
