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.<\/p>\n
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\u20130 Champions League win over Club Bruges. During his absence Arsenal added attacking options in Viktor Gy\u00f6keres and Noni Madueke, prompting suggestions the 28-year-old might seek a move to reignite his career. In an extensive interview with The Players\u2019 Tribune, part of the Minute Media network, Jesus rejected that idea and framed his return around a simple objective: winning titles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel that I have unfinished business at Arsenal, I don\u2019t want to leave,\u201d Jesus said.<\/p>\n
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. \u201cWhen 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\u2019s reaction was, \u2018Oh? Who is this kid?\u2019 They looked at me as a pure goalscorer. But that\u2019s not how I see myself. My strongest trait is that I will do whatever it takes to help the team win titles.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt City , I played many roles. I shared the goal scoring load with [Sergio] Ag\u00fcero sometimes. Other times, I played out on the wing. And other times, I used my physicality to link up play. I think that\u2019s why Mikel brought me here, years ago. I don\u2019t always need to be the No. 9 to help the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am here [at Arsenal] to make history. When I got called to the main team at Palmeiras, when I was 18, they hadn\u2019t won the Brazilian league in 22 years. We woke up the \u201csleeping giant\u201d and won the title, and now they can\u2019t stop winning. I go back there sometimes, and I walk the halls at the club, and all you see are trophies, trophies, trophies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it can be the same at Arsenal ,\u201d he continued. \u201cWe 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\u2019s the same as he demands from the chef. Everything, every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith this manager and this squad, we can do it. I trust my football. I trust God\u2019s plan. And I know that if I get a chance, I can help the team with the league.\u201d<\/p>\n
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. \u201cThis 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,\u201d he reflected. \u201cBut I believe that God wouldn\u2019t give me a challenge that I couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople have asked, \u2018Why don\u2019t you just leave? Why don\u2019t you go to Saudi? Or back home to Brazil?\u2019<\/p>\n
Arteta has repeatedly stressed the need for depth and Arsenal now have an expanded forward group including Gy\u00f6keres, Madueke, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Leandro Trossard, Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino. Speaking to reporters, the manager said: \u201cNo, 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cA 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gabriel Jesus insists he remains at Arsenal and is determined to help end the club’s league drought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1303],"tags":[1073,1312,1066],"class_list":["post-5232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-arsenal-news","tag-acl-injury","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232","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=5232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}