LONDON — With a little help from Arsenal’s biggest stars, Gabriel Jesus got everything he could have wanted this Christmas. Mikel Arteta too, as the Gunners reached the semi-finals of the EFL Cup and had the first indication that their attacking squad might not be as barren as feared.
A brilliant hat-trick from Jesús banished memories of a shoddy first 45 minutes and made a compelling case that the Brazilian, often a shadow of the player he was before being beset by knee injuries, may still have value for the team. Arsenal. He may not have the burst of his Manchester City days, the time when he could lead the press, control an entire flank with his hard running and pull away from defenders who dared to get too close, but if Jesus is still the player he always was, one who occupies valuable shooting positions with spectacular regularity, so Arteta must work with that.
“It’s been a long period without goals,” said the Arsenal manager. “Today scoring the three and the many actions in which he was involved is great for him and for the team that we can count on a player of such quality. He contributes something, he has a quality and a way of creating and generating situations that is quite unique .
“Now it’s about consistency. This is a spark moment that will give him and the team so much confidence that we can trust him. We need to take advantage of it. We need to give him more games and opportunities.”
Before that brilliant hat trick, the tone had been set for a match that could yield a quite different conclusion about the value of the rotation. When Palace took a third-minute lead, they never looked like relenting in the next 42, rather it looked like Arteta had squandered a good domestic cup opportunity to reinforce a Premier League fade this weekend. Despite his insistence that the EFL Cup could put his players in trophy-winning mode, the eight changes from the team that drew 0-0 with Everton speak to priorities elsewhere.
Not that Gabriel and William Saliba, both on the bench when Arteta named an XI without either of them for the first time since January 2022, would not have made the mistake that saw Jakub Kiwior let a helmet fly over his head under pressure. from Mateta. . It’s just that if this had happened to either of those two, they would have applied the afterburners and bullied the striker into submission. Best-case scenario for Mateta: maybe he ducks a shot to test the goalkeeper. Against Kiwior, however, he was able to keep pressure on his outside shoulder, assess David Raya’s slightly unstable position and roll the ball towards the far post.
This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Kiwior’s role in an opposition goal has been in the spotlight, but his struggles really speak to the quality of those above him in the pecking order. Even with just one of Gabriel and Saliba on the pitch, Arsenal are giving nothing away – that Mateta shot was worth more xG than the combined value of Fulham and Everton’s shots in the last two Premier League games – but it’s simply not realistic. Wait for your reinforcements to eliminate the opposition.
Someone needs to contribute something on the other end. In the first part that was no one in particular. A Leandro Trossard corner almost bounced, Raheem Sterling took a free kick elegantly but too close to Dean Henderson. Through it all, the agony of Jesus. At his best, when he has teammates to come and go with, it seemed like every time the ball came his way there were three stronger, bigger, more mobile yellow jerseys around him. The player who electrified the Emirates in his first three months at the club might not have thought about fighting his way through that. This time there was something almost pathetic, that is, full of pathos, in seeing a man so stripped of his physical gifts as to walk away from the centre-backs when he still had a first touch to die for. He would kill the ball but then he would kill the attack.
At least until Arsenal found a way to put him in positions where he didn’t need that extra yard. With Martin Odegaard and later Bukayo Saka introduced into the supply line, the passes reached Jesús right on the last shoulder of the Palace defence.
It wasn’t the only change that put Jesus in the right place. From time to time in the first half, Arsenal had made the most of having a left-back who functioned like a true full-back, keeping his width high up the pitch and forcing the rest of the attack infield. In the second, they just lent more to let Kieran Tierney do Kieran Tierney things. In the process, Leandro Trossard moved a channel into the field, falling into those spaces between the line where his number 9 seemed to get stuck. Jesus had no choice but to go and be a forward.
“It’s just about playing to each player’s strengths,” Arteta said of his Tierney’s successful 69 minutes. “That’s something we have to continue to learn. Players give you a lot of information. They tell you, not so much by talking, but with a lot of information where they feel more comfortable. Certainly, there is a much better option for him.” “.
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From there, all he needed was a goal. Odegaard made a pass through two Palace lines, putting Jesus one on one against a defense that had harassed him for the last 53 minutes. He didn’t need to run away from Trevoh Chalobah. He first touched it past a sliding tackle before lofting the ball past Henderson.
That was all I needed. Had VAR been in place tonight, there would have been doubts over whether Jesus was offside when Saka put him in for his second. Instead, the ball was headed for the first goal, the kind of authoritative finish that would have been unimaginable an hour earlier. As did Jesus, keeping his head when the entire Palace half was his with another pass from Odegaard, but a good finish gave him his first competitive hat-trick as an Arsenal player.
Of course, tonight is not enough to say that Jesus has risen. You still have to go back to January to find out his last goal in the Premier League. Will he have a chance to end that drought against the same opponent on Saturday, or will Kai Havertz be around again for the big games? Still, Jesus was also occupying the right spots against Monaco a week ago. He may never have the burst he had before knee surgery, but the good thing about his recent games is that he gets it, and that, surrounded by the right talent, he can be a little more of a pure threat in the penalty box. .
Given Arsenal’s recent struggles in front of goal, it would be a great Christmas present for Arteta to discover the new striker who would otherwise have needed to rummage through the January sales basket. Certainly better than a little myrrh.
