LONDON — With a little help from Arsenal’s biggest stars, Gabriel Jesus got everything he could possibly have wished for this Christmas. Mikel Arteta too, as the Gunners reached the semifinals of the EFL Cup and were afforded the first hint that their attacking depth chart might not be as barren as had been feared.
A brilliant hat trick from Jesus banished memories of a shoddy first 45 minutes and made a compelling case that the Brazilian, too often a shadow of the player he was before being beset by knee injuries, may yet have value for Arsenal. He might not have the burst of his Manchester City days, the time when he could lead the press, hold down an entire flank with his hard-running and fly away from defenders who dared to get too close, but if Jesus remains the player he always was — one who gets into valuable shooting positions with spectacular regularity — then that is something for Arteta to work with.
“It’s been a long period for him without goals,” said the Arsenal manager. “Today to score the three and the many actions he was involved in, it’s great for him and the team that we can rely on a player of such quality. He brings something, he has a quality and way of creating and generating situations that is quite unique.
“It’s now about consistency. This is a moment of spark that will give so much confidence to him and the team that we can rely on him. We need to take it. We need to give him more games and chances.”
Before that brilliant hat trick, the tone was set for a game that might deliver a rather different conclusion about the value of rotation. When Palace flew into a third minute lead they never looked like ceding in the subsequent 42, it rather looked like Arteta had frittered away a good shot at a domestic cup to bolster a fading swing at the Premier League this weekend. Despite his insistence that the EFL Cup could get his players in a trophy-winning mode, the eight changes from the side that drew 0-0 with Everton speaking to priorities elsewhere.
It was not that Gabriel and William Saliba, both on the bench as Arteta named an XI without either for the first time since January 2022, would not have made the mistake that saw Jakub Kiwior let a hoof upfield fly over his head under pressure from Mateta. It is just that if this happened to either of those two they would have applied the afterburners and bullied the striker into submission. Best case scenario for Mateta: maybe he squirms away a shot to test the goalkeeper. Against Kiwior, however, he could hold the pressure to his outside shoulder, assess David Raya’s slightly wonky positioning and roll the ball into the far post.
This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Kiwior’s role in an opposition goal has been in the spotlight but his struggles really speak to the quality of those above him in the pecking order. With even just one of Gabriel and Saliba on the pitch Arsenal give away nothing — that one Mateta shot was worth more xG than the combined value of Fulham and Everton’s shots in the last two Premier League games — but it simply isn’t realistic to expect your backups to blot out the opposition.
Someone needs to provide something at the other end. In the first half that was no one in particular. A Leandro Trossard corner nearly bounced in, Raheem Sterling knuckleballed a free kick elegantly but much too close to Dean Henderson. Through it all, the agony of Jesus. At his best when he has team mates to give and go with, it seemed like every time the ball came his way there were three stronger, bigger and more mobile yellow shirts around him. The player who electrified the Emirates in his first three months in the club might have thought nothing of wriggling his way through that. This time there was something almost pathetic – i.e. full of pathos – in seeing a man so robbed of the physical gifts to take himself away from center backs when he still had a first touch to die for. He would kill the ball but then he would kill the attack.
At least until Arsenal found a way to get him in positions where he did not need that extra yard. With Martin Odegaard and latterly Bukayo Saka introduced to the supply line, the passes were coming to Jesus right on the last shoulder of the Palace defense.
It wasn’t the only change that got Jesus in the right spots. Occasionally in the first half Arsenal had made the most of having a left back who functioned as a true wing back, holding his width high up the pitch and forcing the rest of the attack infield. In the second they only lent further into letting Kieran Tierney do Kieran Tierney stuff. In the process Leandro Trossard moved a channel infield, dropping into those pockets between the line where his No.9 seemed to get bogged down. Jesus had no choice but to go and be a striker.
“It’s just playing each player in their strengths,” Arteta said of his Tierney’s largely successful 69 minutes. “That’s something that we have to continue to learn. Players give you a lot of information. They tell you, not so much by talking, but with a lot of information where they feel more comfortable. Certainly there is a much better fit for him.”
From there, all he needed was a goal. Odegaard fizzed a pass through two Palace lines, putting Jesus one on one against a defense that had swarmed him for the past 53 minutes. He didn’t need to sprint away from Trevoh Chalobah. He just first touched it past a sliding tackle before dinking the ball past Henderson.
That was all he needed. Had VAR been in operation tonight it might have had questions over whether Jesus was offside when Saka slipped him in for his second. Instead, the ball was thundered home first time, the sort of authoritative finish that would have been unimaginable an hour earlier. As would Jesus keeping his head when the entire Palace half was his off another Odegaard through ball, but a fine finish delivered his first competitive hat trick as an Arsenal player.
Of course this one night is not enough to say that Jesus is risen again. You still have to go back to January for his last Premier League goal. Will he get the chance to end that drought against the same opposition on Saturday, or will Kai Havertz be restored for the big games? Still, Jesus was getting into the right spots against Monaco a week ago too. He may never again have the burst of his pre-knee operation self, but the bull case of his recent games is that he gets that, and that surrounded with the right talent he can be a bit more of a pure penalty box threat.
Given Arsenal’s recent struggles in front of goal, it would be quite the Christmas present for Arteta to discover the new striker he might have otherwise needed to rummage around the January sale bin for. Certainly better than some myrrh.
