You might not be having this one, and I wouldn’t blame you. The idea of writing something critical about Gabriel Jesus ten games into a season which sees Arsenal having won nine and sitting four points clear at the top borders on blasphemy.
However, indulge me, just for a moment. Arsenal were not great on Sunday against Leeds United and within that poor performance was probably Gabriel Jesus’ worst.
Contextually, he has been brilliant for us, and we wouldn’t be where we are without him. But to stay there, we need the Jesus that began the season to rediscover that form and, interestingly, it is Martin Odegaard that has helped show the biggest problem he faced.
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Without question, the Norwegian was the standout for the Gunners in the first half. His touch, the passing, and the way in which he helped the Gunners navigate the Leeds press, as much as was feasible, was superb.
He operated on the right-hand side of the centre in his assigned role. As shown in the graphic below, he probably had one of his more restricted performances, like many of his teammates, due to how aggressive his opponents were.
Yet he still created the two biggest chances that Arsenal had to score which Bukayo Saka thankfully took one of. The other was missed by Jesus.
A chance that, upon reflection, he will know he should be scoring from. A chance that he already has scored from earlier this season and in the preseason too.
But look again at the graphic above, to the average position of players in the bottom left. Notice how deep the Brazilian is, he spent the majority of the game playing behind Odegaard.
This has a doubly negative impact on things. Not only do Arsenal lack their main outlet and focal point, which, when possession was turned over, particularly in the second half, they found a struggle to escape, but Odegaard’s strength of creativity was stunted by not having his striker to aim at.
Jesus fell into a trap that Alexandre Lacazette was heavily criticised for. It is just one game, and so thankfully, the PSV and Southampton matches, should he play both, will provide further insight to indicate this isn’t becoming a theme.
He needs to return to playing on the shoulder of the opposition defenders. Yes, he can drop in for combination play, but he needs to ensure he remains the central focal point of the side.
This probably explains why Arteta brought on Fabio Vieira for Odegaard as the initial change. Vieira can play better further forward than his Norwegian counterpart, and the position graphic does show the feint circle of Vieira indeed ahead of Jesus.
In games such as against Liverpool and Tottenham, Jesus was significantly ahead of Odegaard. Yes, both the wide players are shown as being further advanced, although playing down the wings, is not out of the ordinary.
There will be further games when opposition sides put the Gunners under serious pressure. The temptation for Jesus might be to continue dropping deeper to aid in ball recovery, a task so often seen to be receiving praise, an attacker defending.
However, to avoid the repeat of Arsenal becoming trapped again, hopefully, this changes. As a final piece of evidence, again, return to the first graphic and find where Eddie Nketiah, the number 14, is found, and to instructions he was given by Mikel Arteta to replace Jesus become abundantly clear.
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