Mikel Arteta says the intensity with which Gabriel Jesus leads the forward line is ‘phenomenal’ and it acts as an example to his teammates.
The Brazil international rounded off an impressive pre-season campaign with a hat-trick against Sevilla as Arsenal routed the Spanish side 6-0 with a high-intensity game that forced mistakes from their opponents.
It’s a style of play that Arteta hopes his side can implement consistently this season with all his players doing their bit.
“What [people] are seeing is that everybody, not just Gabby, plays at that intensity and that willingness to win the ball, to promote mistakes and to play in the opponent’s half as much as possible,” he said in his post-game press conference on Saturday.
“You cannot do that if players at the front are walking, they are not tracking, they don’t have that instinct and that intention to provoke things that we want and Gabby is phenomenal at that.”
On what Jesus brings to the team, he added: “His versatility is well known. Now we are using him as a nine, he can play as a winger, off the left and the right.
“You can play with two strikes as we have done in pre-season as well and change the shape a little bit. He gives us a lot of flexibility.”
Signed from Manchester City for £45 million less than a month ago, it’s been a whirlwind few weeks for the 25-year-old.
Arsenal supporters were hoping he’d hit the ground running and so far he’s not disappointed.
“You are hoping that that is going to happen,” said Arteta. “Obviously a player has to adapt to a new city, to a new club, new teammates and he’s done it in a really fast and natural way.
“You can see the way they [his teammates] look for him on the pitch, on and off the ball, and what he’s able to transmit as well on that pitch so I am really happy.”
Fellow Brazilian Gabriel Martinelli is clearly impressed by what he’s seen. The pair now have four months of domestic football to hone a partnership that they can then potentially take to the world stage at Qatar 2022.
“For me, he (Jesus) is one of the best strikers in the world,” Martinelli told The Athletic.
“I am happy to have him here and it is a pleasure to play with him. I hope I give a lot of assists for him and we go to the national team together.
“Me and Gabi [Magalhaes] were always saying to him, ‘Come to Arsenal’ and you can see what he is doing now.
“Of course, he knows how to win. He’s going to be important for us this season not just scoring goals but giving us advice as well.”
It’s a new dawn
It’s a new day…
And I’m feeling good…
It’s a new life
It’s a new way..
All good, I believe we still need to keep Balogun around and sign or loan an experienced, slightly different bigger style player up front to add to squad options for the season, not least because of that intensity that Jesus has and Mikel speaks of, difficult to maintain that for 95 minutes week in week out and with the introduction of the now tactical subs rule that position is the most effective change a Manager can make in the second half of a game in my view. Meanwhile though let’s just enjoy watching this fella, I know I will, looking… Read more »
A loan for Balogun would suit him and arsenal best in the long term. I say get a experience striker on loan, a Giroud, dzeko type would suit us well. I personally don’t think we need another wide player. Martinelli, esr, saka, reiss, Viera and even jesus can do a job out wide. Let Balogun get another year of mens football to develop playing a run of at least 20-30 games, come back next season after we qualify for champion league (fingers crossed) and compete with eddie and Jesus. If anything we might need another CM especially with what’s going… Read more »
What a fantastic example of what is expected of the youngsters at this club and those like Reiss and Eddie who have to seriously up their game across several areas of their own game in order to stay competitive in the Premier League.
Just getting good running numbers or goal scoring numbers isn’t enough. They need intelligence in their pressing and combination play, ontop of developing their own game.
For Eddie he needs to learn how to move the opposition defence around to create openings for himself.. too often he expects them to make a mistake and let’s them be static in their lines.
Similar with Reiss, he needs to learn to be a threat and cause several opponents an issue instead of just the opposition fullback. At this level even if you roast the fullback someone is covering whilst waiting for the fullback to recover and join the press
I have a good feeling about Jesus having a positive effect on our first choice and deeper choice attackers
To say Nkietiah let’s the opponent’s defence stay static is just not right, he’s always running at them, we saw it a couple times last season where he forced a mistake off a defender and converted it into a goal. A certain one against Chelsea springs to mind.
I love Jesus
Enjoyed the fact that we had bodies in the box for the cut backs. Ready to attack it or pounce on loose balls. Last season cut backs just seemed speculative
Sweet Jesus
The fact that MA keeps talking about Jesus able to play wide suggests to me we might be in for another striker.
Balogun will surely be loaned and if ever Jesus plays wide we will have only one genuine striker in Eddie. Seeing as MA has made a big deal about how many more goals we need to be scoring this just doesn’t seem to be enough. We were after that Fiorentina guy in the winter and I think we would have taken Jesus this summer at 45m even if we’d been successful in that pursuit.
It would require a miracle for Stan to buy us another striker… ah… hang on…
Stan is on another level financially (spending).
Vlahovic and Jesus would have been a deadly combo.
It would be seen as a left field move but if we went for Sesko, I’d be pretty chuffed. He’s only 18 and you could compare it to the Vlahovic signing in terms of profile. Could give us a plan ‘B’.
We should have signed Nick Pope. It would have made Jesus more at home.
Don’t know if that will make sense to enybody else, but since yesterday afternoon I have a old tune in my head that goes:
“Our own… Personal… Jesus…
Someone to free up space
Someone who scores.
Our own.. Personal… Jesus
Someone to glide through the surface,
Your defense’s sh*t scared”
Let’s hope this continues when the premiership starts. COYG!
I thought Jesus forgives opponents’ mistakes
To be fair, Martinelli and Odegaard are a big part of that lightning press too.
Let’s just hope he can keep it up consistently as a starter over a season. He was never consistently in the starting XI for Man City so he’s still to prove he can.
Lacazette could press like an animal when selected for short bursts at a time. But always looked lethargic after a few consecutive weeks in the starting XI.
Not saying GJ is the same, but I’ve been burned too many times by a signing’s early form, and the team’s strong pre-season form, to extrapolate and get over excited.