Jesus has started 50% of their PL games this season, that’s not bad considering and he’s contributed too.
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Exactly, that’s pretty much how it is at City. One month you’re regarded the best player in the league and the next you barely get any time. I’ve lost count how many times Bernardo has gone from people calling him the best player in the league to then his future be questioned because he can’t get into the side.
Honestly, the star of City isn’t a player, it’s Pep himself. Which does makes things interesting now that Haaland will come.
A few things here.
- yes gundogan was playing false 9 last year. 17 goals in all comps.
- On podolski im referring to fan reception of the move at the time, in the sense we all knew he was limited but as soon as it was clear we were interested it kind of shifted to being overly positive, its just a specific memory i have from the time and feels similar to now.
Of course Jesus is an improvement and i love he can play across the front 3 at a high level but honestly I think its an absolute nailed on another lacazette style signing where 1 year down the line we’re all talking about needing a top quality striker.
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I didn’t think he was playing false #9 when he went on a tear, if I’m wrong on that fair enough.
I get the notion of convincing ourselves that he’ll be a good option but in this case there is some good reasons to believe he’ll be a goof fit for the kind of profile of striker that Arteta wasn’t to deploy.
As @SRCJJ mentioned Jesus is an adept dribbler with very good movement, his link up play is quite good also, when he receives the ball it tends to stick and he can play one touch football all day long. Honestly, the only thing I have reservations about is his goal scoring which of course is an important attribute of a striker but like I said there’s potential upside there. He has never been given the keys to be the #1 striker for a whole season and that is something that he may thrive with if given the opportunity.
Unlike Lacazette he will find himself in goal scoring situations more often because he’s a vastly superior athlete, has more trickery, has much better movement off the ball which he can make the most use of especially if he is a focal point of the attack. How many times has Lacazette failed to get a shot of because he’s a second or more too slow, not in the right area at the right time or just laboured in his play in general? That isn’t happening with Jesus.
There’s no doubt it could turn out to be a lame signing but it’s worth a shot because he has a very good overall profile, I don’t think he is necessarily at his peak as a player. Also Jesus doesn’t have to be the successor to Auba, best case he is and worst case he functions as a placeholder because the market is pretty shite right now.
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Not happy paying 50m for Jesus with 1 year left, rather pay a bit more and get an upgrade in that case
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Fair enough but whom might that be?
All these guys have a degree of risk and some for greater cost.
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I’ve decided to stop looking at transfer fees.
Really think Jesus will be a great addition to this squad. Look at how much better we look with an average player like Nketiah up front (instead of Laca). Jesus is ten times the player he is.
Bring him in. We’ve got money.
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I just think it is sooo funny how quickly the narrative has changed on here from “false 9s don’t exist, we definitely do not play with one, you cant win things like that, it’s the CF’s job to score all the goals and Laca is just bad at it” to “we actually don’t need the CF to score goals, just be better in play than Laca” the second we’re linked to a guy with a shittier goal scoring record than Laca 
Well at least he should be significantly better in that aspect, so I guess we’re good 
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I think my ideal striker would be Osimhen however I’m fine with Jesus and maybe another wide forward/striker (Gakpo).
I think the fact that people are questioning his goal output are right to. At this point in time, he’s not looked prolific in that City team however as others have mentioned, there could be a reason to that. So there’s definitely good reasoning on either side here and I guess we’ll have to see how it unfolds if we do actually get him.
I think I mentioned this before; in the striker market, are there any nailed on goal scorers that you can absolutely see coming into the side and bagging 20+ goals? Like Haaland levels of confidence. Because I don’t. There are many options out there, some that we have been linked to recently that I like however I won’t profess to say they would be prolific here. They would certainly improve us though.
The goals Eddie scored at the weekend, especially his first, are ones that Laca doesn’t score. The simple fact that Jesus isn’t Laca and Arteta being Arteta, is that he would get the minutes and the likelihood is that he will get the opportunities to score more than he has at City.
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I don’t think the narrative has shifted at all. Most people here want us to sign TWO strikers and very few want Jesus to be the number one striker signing we make. I’ve seen plenty of people say that and offer names of other strikers they’d want to see us sign as well. Jesus offers us versatility and a different approach in our attack but he’s by no means the consistent goal scorer that most people want.
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In his best goal scoring PL seasons he has scored 14 goals in 21 starts and 13 goals in 19 starts, I can see him bagging around 18 league goals as the focal point of the attack with 30 plus starts in his first season
@SRCJJ: honestly I saw that post and thought he’s making shit up
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I’ll praise the day Lacazette leaves the club so I don’t have to hear these dumbshit mental gymnastics about what type of player he is anymore.
He’s simply nothing more than a god awful one. Jesus is night and day on a technical level- his goal scoring record at City is simply a young striker learning his trade at a team that shares the goals and have a very cohesive and organized style of play. It’s genuinely all about the team dynamic there and the fact that he’s done so well during his time there will no doubt be to our benefit if we land him- hell he’s even shown a rather clinical side lately.
Not to mention if we sign Jesus there’s nothing stopping us from approaching other types of strikers - different profiles. I don’t know who that will be at this point but Jesus can play across the entire 3, he’ll be very easy to fit into the team and I really think we’re going to smart enough this time round not to repeat the issue of trying to fit Aubazette into a team together which honestly was just a rod for own back, both wanted the central spot and having both playing at the same time was literally the complete opposite of a front 3 fluid dynamic
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Osimhen/Martinez/Nunez/Leao
Or if not cheaper player(s) (such as Dennis/Barbosa/loan signing) , so we can strengthen in other areas in attack where there’s more quality/value available, like Sterling, Raphinha, Gakpo, Gnabry etc who are better than Jesus and can rotate around the forward positions.
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If we walked into next season with a front 3 of Gnabry -Jesus - Saka we’d have won the lottery as fans.
Sure it’s nice to have different profiles but having 3 interchangeable attackers of high technical standards is also a treat to watch.
Especially when you have someone like Odegaard linking it all together
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- Oshimhen would cost probably north of 90mil
- Martinez is a similar player in many respects
- Nunez would cost big money in comparison whilst also being a risk, also in terms of all round play which Arteta values he isn’t there yet
- Leao better than Jesus? Wouldn’t say he is right now at all and besides he plays as a winger for Milan
Spending £50mil on Jesus (if it even comes to that) doesn’t stop us from getting other players especially if we’re in the CL
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Reyes Cleary would be a great signing for the future for us.
Osimhen and Nunez are worth 80-90m to me. If we get Jesus for 50m I worry we then need another decent striker in case he’s off form, by which point we’ve paid close to the 80/90m we could have upgraded for. I don’t have the same concerns with Osimhen/Nunez.
Nunez is the one player I think that could end up being a truly world class striker, so it’s as much for his potential as current ability
Martinez is a bit similar, but he’s a lot better in the air and I’d argue he’s more clincial. Doesnt sound like he’d cost a lot more than 50m from the news stories around
Leao plays a mix of positions including striker, I agree he’s not really an upgrade on Jesus, more of an alternative
No it doesn’t, but if we throw 80m for Jesus plus rotation striker that’s most of our budget gone for LB, DM, CM, RW. At least if we paid that for a top striker we could feel like the first team has been significantly improved for it.
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You can feel that but doesn’t guarantee anything.
There’s inherent risk even with Nunez and it seems regardless of who’s coming in we may need two forwards anyways
I agree, if Man City want anything more than 30m, we should look elsewhere.
It’s clear Jesus would be an upgrade on Lacazette but we need an efficient goal scorer, especially with Saka, ESR, Odegaard, Martinelli, etc, playing alongside him and I’m not sure he is that efficient.
As I said before, Man City have scored almost a hundred goals this season with him as their main striker, yet in around twenty PL games he’s only scored eight goals and half of those were against Watford, which makes him no more efficient than Nketiah.
I’d rather spend 120m on Sterling and a player like Omishen than 100m on Jesus and DCL.
Jesus is a valuable long term acquisition for our squad if we can get him.
This is a signing that I’m 99% sure we’ll not be desperate to get rid of in 3 years time, which would be a luxury as a modern Arsenal fan.
He’s been coached by our coach for several years and he sees what he needs in there. We have plenty of gaps in our squad he can fill, we probably need to make 3 attacking signings this window so I don’t know why anyone would try to convince themselves this was a bad idea.
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