Barcelona\u2019s pursuit of Gabriel Jesus is a move few saw coming, but it fits the logic of a club trying to close a clear gap in attack without taking on excessive risk. The back-to-back La Liga champions already have Anthony Gordon and Karim Adeyemi among their new arrivals, while Raphinha and youngster Hamza Abdelkarim, who can also operate at centre forward, are part of the picture. Even so, leaving out a recognised No. 9 after the exits of Robert Lewandowski and Ferran Torres would have carried obvious danger.<\/p>\n
For a side that wants to end an 11-year wait for a sixth European crown, the calculation is straightforward. Under Hansi Flick, Barcelona have become Spain\u2019s dominant force, and the club now see Jesus as a \u201cmarket opportunity\u201d they couldn\u2018t pass up. The $11.6 million fee reduces the downside, particularly given the striker\u2019s fitness record.<\/p>\n
That issue is central to any assessment of the deal. Jesus was outstanding early in his Arsenal spell and arrived there after winning a major collection of trophies with Manchester City, but injuries have severely limited him. Over the last two seasons he has started only nine league matches, and during Arsenal\u2019s title-winning campaign he was used as the third-choice centre forward.<\/p>\n
Barcelona may also have been encouraged by what Jesus has done against Real Madrid. His record against Los Blancos is strong: four appearances, three goals, one assist and three wins from four, with a goal involvement every 113.7 minutes.<\/p>\n
Most of those meetings came in Manchester City colours, where the fixture grew into a kind of European \u201cSupercl\u00e1sico\u201d. Jesus first faced Madrid in February 2020 and scored in a 2-1 comeback win at the Bernab\u00e9u. After the pandemic delay, he played a decisive role again in the empty Etihad second leg, setting up one goal and scoring another after pressing mistakes from Raph\u00e4el Varane.<\/p>\n
His final meeting with Madrid came in the 2021-22 semifinals, when he scored City\u2019s second goal in the first leg before Madrid turned the tie around in the return. That was also the first defeat Jesus suffered against them in his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcelona view Gabriel Jesus as a low-risk answer in attack, with his record against Real Madrid standing out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,987],"tags":[1162,180,182],"class_list":["post-18894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-real-madrid","tag-analytics","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}