LONDON -- A lone voice in the East Stand strikes up the chant. "I believe in Jesus', Arsenal's No. 9". The other 60,156 aren't tempted. The giddy delight in which he enraptured supporters in the summer of 2022, the fervor with which they greeted him being risen from the treatment table the following Easter: such an atmosphere feels a lifetime ago.
It was no wonder Wednesday night that the Emirates Stadium failed to rally around their fading star. It wasn't just the two really big misses to start off the 3-0 win over Monaco. It was the ball over the top he didn't quite throw himself at against Fulham, the increasingly timid cameos in the weeks before, the 22 Premier League games without a goal. It's enough to have the Arsenal fanbase quite reasonably saying that it doesn't matter if they believe in Gabriel Jesus. Does Gabriel Jesus believe in Gabriel Jesus?
He's beginning to. The direct scoring output was not there again and that matters. It cannot be doing Jesus' confidence any favors that he is the lowest-scoring Gabriel at Arsenal in the year 2024 by a margin of five. Since the day he suffered that World Cup-ending knee injury more than two years ago, Jesus has rarely if ever looked the mobile, aggressive force he was before, the man who could make believers of doubters with one dribble.
No less than pronounced than whatever issues may linger in his knee is what that injury seems to have done to Jesus' spirit. The verve of old has rarely if ever been apparent this season. At his worst of late, he has played like a man torn between two conflicting ideas. He knows how much just getting that one goal when it really matters -- i.e. not against Preston -- would do him the world of good. It just isn't his game to goal hunt.
Not that he didn't get into prime spots in this one. That matters. It is easy to play into the familiar narrative that coalesced around Jesus in his Manchester City days, that he simply isn't a killer, the sort of striker who needed only one chance to bury his opponent. There's probably truth in that. When you have consistently underperformed your xG through nine seasons in English football, it's probably not all variance.
Then again, the output would still look pretty encouraging when he was getting 0.9, 0.8 even 0.6 xG per 90. In 2024, that number has dipped to 0.31 in over 1,000 minutes and is even a fair wedge lower when he's getting to go at tiring defenses off the bench. Jesus hasn't even been getting in spots to miss his chances.
A step in the right direction then. Twice Jesus found himself in prime scoring positions. The first time, an elegant ball from back to front by Jakub Kiwior did much off the work for him but he still needed the right first touch and a decent hit of his shot. Quibble if you want about the second but he hardly shanked it. Not for the first or last time in this game, it took very good work from Radoslaw Majecki to foil Jesus.
Indeed a little over two minutes later the Monaco goalkeeper was the spoiler again. This time there was even more to like in Jesus' muscularity, holding off Thilo Kehrer to first claim Gabriel Martinelli's shot and then draw a smart save from Majecki. Time and time again Jesus was attacking the space in behind the Monaco defense and Arsenal kept finding him.
The best ball of the lot was to come from the full Champions League debutant, Myles Lewis-Skelly fizzing the ball through the line and into Jesus' path. This time his eyes were fixed not on the goal but Bukayo Saka, a first-time cross to evade three defenders and find his man at the back post easier said than done.
It was a reminder that a good Jesus performance can be about more than pure scoring. His pressing created another chance for himself when it looked like Monaco had cleared Mikel Merino's cross. Jesus was prepared to go wherever required to aid his team but on this occasion, it didn't stop him getting into impactful areas. He faded as Monaco's pressure grew in the second half and Kai Havertz's robust, goalscoring cameo will have only strengthened his standing at the top of the striker depth chart.
This was at least a step in the right direction, a sign that there might be something to be resurrected in a player so frequently linked with an exit this year. Those zealots who still remain have something to cling to. For the rest to believe in Jesus, though, Arsenal's No. 9 is really going to have to do more than just get into the right spots.
