Gabriel Jesus, the Arsenal striker, recently revealed the reasons behind his move from Manchester City to Arsenal last summer.
Jesus joined City in 2019 but found himself as a backup to Sergio Aguero until Aguero’s departure in 2021.
The arrivals of Erling Haaland and Julian Alvarez as new strikers at City prompted Jesus to seek a new club, and he ultimately chose Arsenal under former City assistant Mikel Arteta.
Jesus specifically mentioned a Champions League game against PSG where Pep Guardiola unexpectedly played Oleksandr Zinchenko as a false 9 instead of Jesus, which deeply affected him and led to his decision to leave.
”There was a Champions League game, PSG, at home, in which he [Guardiola] put Zinchenko as a false 9. Crazy thing,” Jesus said on the Denilson Show podcast. “The day before, he didn’t even use [Zinchenko] in training, he had put me in as a striker. … Zinchenko even joked with me: ‘that day I felt bad for you.’
“Two hours before the game, there’s a team talk, the team eats, rests for 30 minutes and goes to the game. He told us the team, I didn’t even eat. I went straight to the room, crying, I called my mother to talk: ‘I want to leave.’ I’m going home, because he put [Zinchenko] on, and he didn’t put me on. He put a left-back there. I went crazy.”
Despite his departure, Jesus had a successful tenure at City, playing 236 games, scoring 95 goals, providing 46 assists, and winning 11 trophies.
This article was updated 3 months ago
