Gabriel Jesus is edging closer to completing his move to Arsenal after agreeing terms on a five-year deal at the Emirates.
The agreement with Manchester City was reached on Friday night, with the Gunners set to sign the Brazilian for an initial £45million. The 25-year-old was one of Arsenal’s prime targets this summer as Mikel Arteta aimed to add more firepower to his attack following the January exit of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette’s departure following the end of his contract.
While Eddie Nketiah extended his contract at the beginning of the month, it’s Jesus who is expected to be the focal point of Arsenal’s new-look attack.
Bukayo Saka was the only Arsenal player to surpass double figures in terms of Premier League goals in the last campaign, while Lacazette, who led the line up until the final few weeks of the campaign, managed just one league goal following the turn of the year.
The hope is that Jesus can now be that reliable and efficient finisher the team crave. He scored eight Premer League goals last season and nine in the campaign before that, which were decent returns considering he was regularly rotated in and out of the side while also being asked to sometimes play out on the right of Pep Guardiola’s attack.
It wasn’t unusual to see Jesus play different roles for City, which was a nod to his versatility and his return of eight league assists last season shed some light on his wider attacking capabilities.
However, it’s predominantly playing through the middle and scoring goals that will be considered most valuable. Yet, delving into his underlying finishing numbers does raise a few red flags.
Since arriving in the Premier League back in 2017, the 25-year-old has scored 58 league goals, 55 of which weren’t penalties. Concerningly though, for that same period, according to Understat his combined non-penalty Expected Goal (xG) total was 71.49.
xG is a metric that utilises historical shot data to measure the quality of goalscoring chances and the likelihood of them being scored. The same is often used to get an indication of how a team or player is performing in front of goal.
In the case of Jesus, what the above indicates is that the Brazilian has hugely underperformed, scoring fewer goals than would have been expected based on the quality of chances he’s received.
A player’s finishing capabilities are rarely consistent, even the very best forwards go through hot and cold spells. However, a larger playing sample does tend to quieten the noise in the numbers and paint a more accurate picture of a player's capabilities.
There’s little doubt Jesus is a top-class attacker, and perhaps things like his mobility, pressing capabilities and link-up play are good enough to still make him a standout addition to the Arsenal squad. And perhaps his finishing will become more consistent in a different attacking structure with more regular minutes.
Yet at this stage, these are all maybes. For now, it’s fair to conclude purely from a goalscoring perspective, it seems clear he’s Jesus is not the efficient finisher Arsenal were initially looking for.
