Rumours abound that Gabriel Jesus could be out for three months with a knee problem picked up at the World Cup…so it is time for Arsenal to dip into the transfer market?
While the Brazilian hasn’t exactly been prolific this season, he has five goals and five assists in 14 Premier League appearances, he has added a value to Mikel Arteta’s side that can’t so easily be quantified.
His pressing, his intensity, his energy and his physicality are all crucial to the way the manager wants his team to play football and, given we sit five points clear at the top of the table, you have to say they have been incredibly effective.
Of course, we’d all like to have Erling Haaland up front, scoring two goals a game every week, but those are freakish numbers that are unsustainable in the long term. Besides, a concentration of goals around one player is great…until that player gets injured.
At Arsenal, we have found goals across the team this season and that has set us apart in many ways. We have a team ethic and collective drive that means almost anyone can pop up with a goal, from Kieran Tierney right through to Gabriel Martinelli.
In many ways, Jesus is the personification of that ethos. He is a humble man not so obsessed with personal achievement that the needs of the team are eschewed but still hungry enough to put everything into his performance, whether things are going his way or not.
Eddie Nketiah has a lot of those qualities, and is working hard on those he doesn’t necessarily possess, but, on his own, he won’t be enough to see us through an extended period of the season. If Jesus really is out for three months, we will need to look at reinforcements.
That may not come in the shape of an out-and-out striker but it feels like it must come in the shape of an attacking player. It is well known that we pushed hard for Raphinha in the summer and, though the player chose Barcelona, it seems the interest in obtaining a player in that position remains.
It’s clear that Nicolas Pepe, currently on loan at Nice in Ligue 1, has no long-term future at the club so, with our main striker out for an extended period, it feels like a January purchase is a priority.
As we know, these types of purchases can be fiendishly difficult to get done in January but, having kept our powder dry in the summer, one would hope Edu and Arteta have some target in mind. And, if the plan had actually been to pursue that player next summer, the position in which we find ourselves in the league must surely have changed minds.
So, yes, if Jesus really does face a prolonged spell on the sidelines, it feels particularly important that we react. We saw with the departure of Pierre Emerick Aubameyang last season that it’s not easy to go through half a campaign without a recognised, top-tier striker and taking that risk again, knowing what we now know, would feel like folly.
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