Although Gabriel Jesus had mostly played as a winger for Manchester City, his first quarter for Arsenal showed the world that he was still a striker at heart.
In his first appearance for the north London club, Jesus ended up scoring a brace, while applying pressure which resulted in a couple of own goals. In the end, the Gunners comfortably beat Nurnberg 5-3, in their first pre-season friendly for 2022. After being bought by the club for $45 million, Jesus was brought in as a half-time substitute as the team from London was trailing the team from Germany 2-0, after a pretty disastrous start by the new keeper for the Gunners- Matt Turner.
Gabriel Jesus Shines In His First Arsenal Outing
It simply took the new star signing for Arsenal 85 seconds to score his first goal in the iconic red and white jersey as he played a one-two with Eddie Nketiah before he smashed in a shot that went through the near post of the Nurnberg keeper. Needless to say, the link-up play by this Brazilian forward with Nketiah was quite impressive.
As it has been reported over the summer, the new no. 9 for the club will be deployed as a central striker with the club playing in a 4-2-3-1 formation throughout the season. This implies Nketiah will be on the bench for most of the season. Nevertheless, both Nketiah and Jesus played alongside each other as a striker duo- as they completely trampled Nurnberg.
After Mohamed Elneny had managed to bring Arsenal back into the game by equalizing, many thought Jesus had scored his first goal for the club with a header. But as it turns out, it was Christopher Schindler of Nurnberg who had diverted the ball into his own net- in his misguided attempt to stop Gabriel Jesus from scoring. The next strike from the Gunners was also an own goal- courtesy of the immense pressure that Jesus had created with Nketiah.
