football.london understands Manchester City forward Gabriel Jesus is among the shortlisted players who could arrive at Arsenal this summer. The player is said to be open to leaving the current Premier League champions and his representative has been holding talks with technical director Edu over the past few months.
Jesus, who can operate anywhere along the frontline, has scored 93 goals and provided 46 assists across 230 appearances for Pep Guardiola's side. The Brazilian international most recently scored four times against Watford, highlighting just how much of a threat he can be in front of goal.
As the transfer links intensify, The Arsenal Way's Bailey Keogh spoke to Manchester Evening News' City writer Alex Brotherton on the Transfer Insight Show to dive deeper into the 25-year-old's qualities and find out exactly what he can bring to north London.
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Bailey highlighted the expectations that would come with Jesus' potential move to Arsenal before asking Alex if he has the mentality and ability to help the Gunners narrow the gap on teams around them.
"I think it will definitely take a couple of years or so, obviously that sounds a bit mad given that he has played in the Premier League for five years now but as I said he is still only 25 which is crazy given how long he's been here," Alex said.
"I think maybe the clinical finishing, I think it is something that would improve with age and obviously he's been around for a while but that is the kind of thing that you just get with more experience, regular game time, playing as a striker. Because let's not forget he's never had regular runs of games as a number nine and if that's how Arsenal wanted to use him and he gets to play there week in week out, I would expect his finishing to become probably more reliable.
"I don't really see any reason why he can't become the 20 plus goals a season striker, a tally he's never achieved at City but as I said, never really played there week in week out."
Alex then touched on Jesus' mentality, which he believes has improved recently. "I think he definitely has the mentality to be fair," he said. "He's a really hard worker, he's unselfish to the extreme in terms of, yeah he can be selfish in front of goal but he'll always look to set up his teammates as well and he never complains when he's not in the team.
"Something that has improved in terms of mentality is in recent years he was quite prone to beating himself up a little bit too much when he does miss these chances and obviously that can sort of make the problem even worse because you miss a good chance, you beat yourself up, you lose confidence and miss more chances.
"But that is something he has improved or he seems to have improved this season, he's worked away from the pitch on himself. So I think mentality wise, he'd be a great fit for any team that's looking to push at the top of the table."
