When Gabriel Jesus was injured, Arsenal kept winning but the Brazil striker is fit again and has rejoined the team seamlessly
rapped up in his warm-down jacket, Gabriel Jesus takes to the field. It’s been more than half an hour since he was substituted, butof him. Opponents want to shake his hand. Fans want to sing his name. Club staff want to make eye contact and slap him on the back. As he takes his lap of honour, a lone camera operator follows him around the entire pitch, training his lens on that soft, twinkling face, a face that for some reason always looks as though it’s on the verge of bursting into tears.
It makes no sense, when you think about it for even a second. Ben White. Leandro Trossard. Aaron Ramsdale. Granit Xhaka. At the start of the season, would you have described any of them as imminent champions? And so perhaps the only real hope for Arsenal is to trust fully in this alternative reality, submit to it, keep doing the things they do without ever really knowing why they do them.
And there is of course a basic paradox here. Nobody seriously contests how crucial Jesus is to the way Arsenal play, the way they compete, the way they attack, the way they score.So how is it that when he was absent Arsenal looked so similar? Can a player really be indispensable if they can also be dispensed with for half a season with little noticeable effect?
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