Mikel Arteta has indicated Gabriel Jesus may be in contention to start Arsenal\u2019s Carabao Cup quarterfinal against Crystal Palace on Tuesday. The striker has made three appearances since returning and has frequently spoken about his desire to contribute, saying he has \u201cunfinished business\u201d in north London amid speculation over his future.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is [ready to start],\u201d Arteta told his pre-match press conference. \u201cYou can see now, not only in games, every day in training, how much he wants it. He\u2019s going to deserve a chance soon.\u201d Arteta added that Jesus\u2019s sharpness on his return to the pitch did not surprise him. \u201cI was watching when he was seven months already on the pitch and the way he was moving and how much he wanted it … I think he wrote a beautiful letter there explaining what football means to him and how it affects his life. I think it was something beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesus arrived from Manchester City in the summer of 2022 and made an immediate impact, contributing an unexpected number of assists and a respectable goal return. Those contributions came even as the club later invested in Kai Havertz and Viktor Gy\u00f6keres over the past two years.<\/p>\n
Gy\u00f6keres is currently struggling to live up to expectations following his \u00a363.5 million ($85 million) switch from Sporting CP, but Arteta believes Jesus can add something different around the forward line. \u201cI think that\u2019s probably the biggest quality of Gabi, bringing people together, connecting with people and generating a lot of uncertainty in the opponent,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you see him today, the amount of spaces that he was involved in, that\u2019s his biggest quality. So we need to exploit that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a really intense journey I would say. I think when he joined us, I think he lifted the belief, the spirit and the energy of the club and the team. I think he gave something very different to what we already had, and it was really impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019s next appearance will be his 100th for the Gunners and, if it comes on Tuesday, could help Arsenal secure a place in the Carabao Cup semifinal, where a tie with Chelsea already awaits the winners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta hinted Gabriel Jesus could start in Tuesday’s Carabao Cup quarterfinal as he nears his 100th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5302,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1067],"tags":[1081,1305,1066],"class_list":["post-5303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-carabao-cup","tag-adaptation","tag-bench-selection","tag-carabao-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303","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=5303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}