Arsenal
Gabriel Jesus: Committed to Arsenal and Focused on Ending the Title Wait
Gabriel Jesus insists he remains at Arsenal and is determined to help end the club’s league drought.
Gabriel Jesus has moved to end speculation about his future by making clear he intends to stay at Arsenal and help the club challenge for the Premier League.
Jesus missed the bulk of the season after tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee in January. He returned on Dec. 10 in the 3–0 Champions League win over Club Bruges. During his absence Arsenal added attacking options in Viktor Gyökeres and Noni Madueke, prompting suggestions the 28-year-old might seek a move to reignite his career. In an extensive interview with The Players’ Tribune, part of the Minute Media network, Jesus rejected that idea and framed his return around a simple objective: winning titles.
“I feel that I have unfinished business at Arsenal, I don’t want to leave,” Jesus said.
He described his arrival at Arsenal as a bid to achieve more than goalscoring and pointed to the variety of roles he played earlier in his career. “When I came here to join Mikel [Arteta], my purpose was not only to score goals. My purpose was to win titles. When I came to the Premier League , I think most people’s reaction was, ‘Oh? Who is this kid?’ They looked at me as a pure goalscorer. But that’s not how I see myself. My strongest trait is that I will do whatever it takes to help the team win titles.
“At City , I played many roles. I shared the goal scoring load with [Sergio] Agüero sometimes. Other times, I played out on the wing. And other times, I used my physicality to link up play. I think that’s why Mikel brought me here, years ago. I don’t always need to be the No. 9 to help the team.
“I am here [at Arsenal] to make history. When I got called to the main team at Palmeiras, when I was 18, they hadn’t won the Brazilian league in 22 years. We woke up the “sleeping giant” and won the title, and now they can’t stop winning. I go back there sometimes, and I walk the halls at the club, and all you see are trophies, trophies, trophies.”
“I think it can be the same at Arsenal ,” he continued. “We can wake up the sleeping giant. I have worked with Mikel since I came to this country, and I know what he demands from me. It’s the same as he demands from the chef. Everything, every day.
“With this manager and this squad, we can do it. I trust my football. I trust God’s plan. And I know that if I get a chance, I can help the team with the league.”
Jesus had been in strong form before the injury, highlighted by a hat-trick against Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup quarterfinal, but he collapsed to the ground in the match against Man Utd. “This has been the most surreal year of my life. Just when I felt like I was back to playing my best football, I felt a snap against United, and my world crumbled,” he reflected. “But I believe that God wouldn’t give me a challenge that I couldn’t come back stronger from. He gave me many blessings to get me through it: My wife, my children, my teammates, and the medical staff at Arsenal, who have been amazing.
“People have asked, ‘Why don’t you just leave? Why don’t you go to Saudi? Or back home to Brazil?’
Arteta has repeatedly stressed the need for depth and Arsenal now have an expanded forward group including Gyökeres, Madueke, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard, Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino. Speaking to reporters, the manager said: “No, I don’t consider that and especially with the situation we have right now. I think Gabi has a lot to offer to the team and he is proving that straight away in the first minutes that he was available to play. He has put so much [in] to be in this position again and now the focus is to be with us.
“A player of his quality, a player who has given us so much and when he comes with the energy he did the other day, he is certainly a player who has to be pushing and aiming [to start], that’s for sure.”
Arsenal
Arsenal face major selection doubts before Liverpool trip
Arsenal’s injury list is growing before Liverpool, with Rice, Saka, Saliba and others in doubt.
Mikel Arteta has been left juggling a growing list of fitness worries ahead of Arsenal’s trip to Liverpool, with Declan Rice among those under an injury cloud. The midfielder was forced off against Everton last weekend after, in Arteta’s words, he finished with “a problem”, leaving his availability for Sunday’s clash at Anfield uncertain.
Rice is not the only concern. Arteta admitted after Arsenal’s Carabao Cup exit that “Riccardo was out, Noni was out with an ankle and Declan Rice finished with a problem the other day,” underscoring the scale of the issue facing his side.
Some absences, though, are already clearer. Bukayo Saka has joined William Saliba on the list of long-term injuries after damaging his left quad in the Champions League draw with Bayern Munich. Saka is expected to miss at least six weeks and will not be back before the start of December at the earliest.
Saliba’s situation remains less defined. The defender has not played this season since surgery on a persistent back problem that became too much for him at this summer’s World Cup. Arteta has described the signs in his recovery as “very, very positive”, but he has not offered a return date, with the end of November mentioned only as a loose target.
There is also uncertainty around Christos Tzolis. The summer signing picked up a thigh problem while on international duty with Greece in the fall and was ruled out for around three weeks. He may yet have a role on Sunday, but his status remains unresolved.
Elsewhere, Max Dowman will not be able to win Arteta over through the FA, although Arsenal could still try to secure the teenager’s availability by appealing his red card against Fleetwood. The 16-year-old was dismissed for kicking out at Harrison Neal, with the force described as minimal but still enough for a straight red. With no VAR at this stage of the Carabao Cup, Michael Salisbury’s on-field call stood at the time. Dowman was found guilty of violent conduct, which the FA Handbook describes as “when a player uses or attempts to use excessive force or brutality against an opponent when not challenging for the ball.”
Arsenal
Arteta’s anger explained after Dowman’s dismissal against Fleetwood
Arteta’s response to Dowman reflected his wider demand for emotional control under pressure.
Mikel Arteta made no attempt to cushion Max Dowman after the youngster’s first red card in senior football during Arsenal’s disappointing Carabao Cup exit to Fleetwood Town on Tuesday.
It was a difficult night throughout for Arsenal. After falling behind 1-0 in the first half to a goal cheaply surrendered by fellow teenager Marli Salmon, the visitors spent the remainder of the match forcing the issue. They produced 26 shots in all, with seven ending up on target, but the pressure never translated into the result they needed.
Dowman was central to some of the missed opportunities. He first scuffed a clear opening across goal before setting up Kai Havertz for a fine chance that the German failed to convert. Beyond the missed chances, the winger also spent much of the evening coping with a physical challenge from Fleetwood.
Referee Michael Salisbury only awarded one foul against Dowman, and that came in the 85th minute with the score at 1-1. Harrison Neal then launched into a full-blooded challenge near the touchline, scissoring the teenager’s standing leg. Dowman responded by kicking out at the midfielder in the middle of a large confrontation, and Salisbury soon produced a red card.
As Dowman headed down the tunnel, Arteta was heard shouting, with the manager later saying: “We know when we prepare the context of the match, we’re very clear on what to expect,” he added. “Emotionally, we have to dominate, but we’re very clear.”
That reaction fitted a theme that has run through Arteta’s work this season. Emotional control has become one of his repeated messages, alongside the idea that Arsenal must handle the moment rather than be carried away by it.
“Emotional dominance” has been a regular phrase in recent weeks, and Arteta has been clear about what he wants from his side. “We have to be emotionally dominant regardless of what the context is. It’s easy to say, very difficult actually to do,” he said earlier this month.
This was Dowman’s first red card for Arsenal, but his second dismissal of the month. The England U-19 international had already been sent off in a behind-closed-doors friendly against the U.S.
Arsenal
Arteta Questions Touchline Standards After Latest Booking
Arteta said he is tracking rival managers after receiving his second yellow card of the season.
Mikel Arteta has taken aim at what he sees as inconsistent discipline for Premier League managers after collecting his second yellow card of the season on Saturday.
The Arsenal boss said he is keeping records of rival coaches who step beyond their technical area without being punished, insisting he will not ignore what he believes is uneven treatment from officials. Known for his constant energy on the sideline, Arteta argued that others are getting away with behaviour that brings him immediate sanction.
“I do have to be careful,” Arteta said when asked about his caution in his postgame press conference. “And we need to have good sensors there. There are managers that have the record in the league, 36 times in 10 minutes leave the touchline, no yellows.
“So I’m clipping all of that. I have a massive storage of images. So if somebody is going to say, ‘I’m not in the record yet, somebody else has the record.’
“Then it’s 36 yellow cards in 10 minutes for the manager. I don’t know where we’re going to be. Let’s see.”
The issue is more than a matter of irritation. Once a manager reaches three yellow cards, an automatic one-match suspension follows. Six cautions bring a two-game ban, while nine lead to a three-match punishment. With only late October reached, Arteta is already halfway to that first threshold.
That means his next booking would remove him from the touchline for Arsenal’s following match, regardless of any argument he might make with his own “massive storage of images.” Even a spirited defence would not alter the sanction.
His post-match comments did not stop there. Despite Arsenal’s gritty win over Everton, Arteta also criticised the schedule, saying the workload had been far from ideal.
“We’re very happy with the victory, the performance and the week, because we were given a terrible schedule,” Arteta said. “Playing Sunday afternoon, then Wednesday night in Munich, coming here really late on Thursday and then having to play again in the Premier League against a really tough opponent on Saturday at 3 p.m.
“We have overcome some injuries, and I’m really proud of the mentality of the team in the conditions today.”
