Arsenal notch Champions League win, but they’ll still need more from a struggling Gabriel Jesus in attack

LONDON — If you wanted a sense of where Gabriel Jesus’ fortunes are right now, you got it within 10 minutes of him departing the field in Arsenal’s underwhelming 1-0 win over Shakhtar Donetsk. 

Valeriy Bondar, with his cavalier insistence on having hands while defending his penalty area, had conceded a penalty that afforded Arsenal the chance to double their lead. More even than that, it afforded someone in red the chance to get among the goals. Mikel Arteta’s side don’t operate the most rigid of spot kick hierarchies but even if they did the probable top two in the pecking order — Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard — were injured. Arsenal have proven themselves perfectly willing to hand one of the best chances in the sport over to whichever player needs a goal to boost their mood or mark a significant life event.

This was Jesus’ moment. Only he’d already come off by then. After all, Arsenal needed a second goal to quell the Emirates Stadium nerves. In such circumstances, they could hardly persevere with their No.9. Scoreless since January, Jesus still doesn’t look like a man entirely over the rash of injuries that have dogged him since the 2022 World Cup. The player who “changed [Arsenal’s] world” on his arrival in the summer of 2022 can’t find a role as Mikel Arteta’s center forward when he is playing two of them. If Bukayo Saka is fit he will surely be confined to the bench when Liverpool come to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

None of which is to say that there was necessarily anything wrong with Jesus’ performance here. From the off, he was nothing less than himself, a player capable of delighting and exasperating the Emirates in the space of two touches. Shakhtar Donetsk left back Pedro Henrique was going nowhere without Arsenal’s No.9 as his shadow. It was no great surprise that at the break Jesus had almost as many touches in his own half (four) as he did the opposition penalty area (five). Whatever position he is deployed in, but even more so off the right, he is going to chase back as far as he can to aid his team on defense.

Without Saka and Odegaard, however, Arsenal really needed Jesus to deliver on the ball. Give it to him and he was perfectly prepared to go. Four take-ons attempted, four succeeded. No one got close to him for passes in the attacking third, but he was no less prepared to create his own shot. There was little more he could have done when slipped through by Kai Havertz than drive low and purposefully across goal. Riznyk did exceptionally to deny him. 

Jesus never quite played like a man needing a goal, but the frustration etched across him when a through pass didn’t come from Riccardo Calafiori in the 47th minute said it all. 

Across the pitch, Jesus’ compatriot speaks to the value of finding the net a few times. A month ago Gabriel Martinelli looked a player some way from the one many expected him to grow into after his 15 goals in the 2022-23 campaign. Everything the youngster did was a little too fast, all directness from a player who was overcompensating in the direction of his strengths. Arsenal were becoming a slow it down team and Martinelli a x2 player.

A scuffy strike against Leicester, his first since early March, and a more impressively taken finish against Southampton the following week: that was all that was needed for Martinelli to get himself back on Arsenal’s wavelength. Tonight he knew when to inject pace and when to hold back. His fullback didn’t have a chance of slowing him down. And so he would be the one who forced the advantage for Arsenal, driving infield and onto his right foot, a low shot clattering off the post and Dmytro Riznyk’s back on the way to goal.

Martinelli might have had more. The hosts’ best chance of a slapdash second half fell his way, a tempting cross off Kai Havertz’s right boot. Had that found the net there would have been no need for those particularly Arsenal-ish nerves where it seems they are at risk of frittering the game away but by the final whistle they’ve barely given up half an expected goal. Trossard was the other man who spurned a prime opportunity to win the game, driving that spot kick a little too low and close to Riznyk’s legs.

Shakhtar had hope at the death, David Raya springing to deny Pedrinho’s drive from range before getting up highest when the ball bounced around his box. It was more than Arsenal should have allowed them. They, and Jesus in particular, need to find their cutting edge.