Gabriel Jesus has hit the ground running for Arsenal since joining from Manchester City, and the latest stat shows just how much has improved our side.
The striker is believed to have been earmarked as our priority summer signing quite early on in 2022, and we are believed to have fended off interest from other big sides in order to win the race for his signature, and all our hard work appears to be paying off.
The new signing was involved in all four of our goals last weekend, scoring the first two against Leicester before teeing up Granit Xhaka and Gabriel Martinelli for the two in the second half, and the latest statistic comparing him to our main striker Alexandre Lacazette last term is surprisingly shocking.
Gabriel Jesus has had 26 touches inside the penalty area in his first two Arsenal starts, Alexandre Lacazette had 31 in all 20 of his PL starts last season.
A look at the transformational impact Arsenal’s £45m man has had on Mikel Arteta’s attack 👇https://t.co/eb3VxDk5za
— Charles Watts (@charles_watts) August 20, 2022
The difference that Jesus has made has been evident so far, but this statistic really highlights just how different the pair are, and what we can expect from our new star.
I can’t help but get excited thinking about just how far we can go with a real outlet leading our front line, especially considering how close we was to a top four finish without one last term, and I also can’t help but feel that the rest of the team has improved massively also, which will only help us tee up something special.
Does this stat show a huge gulf in the way that the two players play, in he way that our team is now setup to accommodate our new striker or just the gulf between the level of the two players?
Patrick
I don’t mean to take away Jesus credit but was it necessary to mention laca?
Everyone knows he had his worse years at Arsenal last season. We have like many players outscoring him including defender.
Perhaps his age is a let down on him too as well as playing different role.
This is not to make an excuse for him, but he was just too bad last year.
It’s better to compare is 2 debut games with Jesus, that would be a bit fair.
Well we could see it. Laca was dropping deeper to win the ball and to knock it on to one of the other attackers, but he didn’t have the pace or athleticism to turn and get into the box in time.
Jesus is a much more rounded striker, especially compared to the laca we saw over the last year or two.
I do also think the team has improved in general, beyond just what jesus has undoubtedly brought. It’s been two games with partey in CM and we’ve been able to dominate the game for larger periods, so I think even laca would have seen the ball in the box more often than he did for most of last season. Jesus is a big improvement though.
I think we now have, in effect, an extra forward player on the pitch from the woefuly inept days of LACA.
Laca was like an old man and Jesus is like a young child with boundless energy and who simply never stops running. The transformation is incredible and Jesus was a wonderful purchase. What I so love is the dynamism throughout our whole team this season, compared with last season.
IT IS LIKE A COMPETELY DIFFERENT TEAM AND MILES BETTER THAN BEFORE.
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@Jon – I think I saw a post from you saying that you have to put up a post with just “a” in it before you can see your previous post (or something like that)…
If you don’t mind a suggestion, you could try using Ctrl + F5 (hold the Ctrl key and press the F5 key).
That will pull the latest page from the server, which should show you any new posts.
Hope this helps.
Jesus has been an inspirational purchase. Strange to think that he probably wouldn’t be here if the Aubameyang situation hadn’t happened (and been resolved as it was*).
His first touch is incredible – the way he took the ball out of the air under pressure, controlled it and let it roll away from him in the direction he wanted to go before the great run to set up the goal. Once again, he was the man making the first goal happen.
It reminded me of the goal he assisted for Xhaka last week – the GK dropped it but he’s right in Jesus’s face and yet he executed that same control in laying it off on a plate for Xhaka. The word brilliant is vastly overused in football commentary, but those two touches, for me, were brilliant.
I thought Jesus would be a good signing, but I had no idea how good. I have to say that he’s a far better player than Aubameyang ever was in every aspect of the game.
* Episode 5 of All or Nothing really shone some light on what happened there and why there was no sell-on clause etc – we were lucky to have saved tens of millions in wages in the last seconds of the window.