Jesus: Page 27 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Jesus

Burnwinter

I would crack a joke about dementia setting in early, but it'd be a bit insensitive to the memory of thegame24

Claudius

LOL.
Tim Stillman had an article yesterday entitled Nketiah's time to shine.
https://arseblog.com/2022/12/eddie-nketiah-time-to-shine/

Jesus and Nketiah could not be more different. Just look at the stats. Eddie needs to come in and just finish, while our AMs will need to find a way to pick up the creative slack for each other. I think Eddie can provide more danger off the shoulder than Jesus though.

goon

Eddie is no Jesus in terms of ability but I dispute the idea that he's just a box player/poacher. That's not why we were all so impressed with him at the back end of last season. He's more than capable of holding it up, running with it and generally looking busy.

My concern with Eddie is with the pressing and positioning. Our whole game and ability pin teams back depends upon Jesus not only pressing but doing it in an intelligent way. Eddie is not switched on enough, too many instances where you can see he's thinking 'this phase of play does not concern me' when in reality there's no such thing. It's the difference between someone who has one it all and someone who is a baby in experience terms. This is where you need the likes of Xhaka and Odegaard to step up and guide him.

Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert

The thing is we've seen Eddie score lots of goals due to harassing a defender into making a mistake or pouncing on a loose ball.

It's not the same as Jesus' sustained pressure for 90 minutes but I think he can learn and adapt.

And yes, he's definitely got more about him than simply box play these days. He's strong and really quick now, and not bad at dribbling.

His time to shine but I'm nervous.

flobaba

Eddie is shit.

Let’s get serious and get a proper replacement in.

Claudius

Two things that Jesus does that accelerate our offense that Eddie just cannot do. First is dribbles. We’ve seen the number of times Jesus just gets on the ball and blows past two or three players like Messi. In the process, he takes out defenders and creates space for himself and the other players rushing into the box. Second is his passing. He drops deep to get the ball from Partey and Odegaard and then redistributes, again with guys like Xhaka and Saka getting in ahead of him. Both of these activities bring speed and fluidity to our offense.

I think folks are underestimating the massive gap between these two players in our ability to generate chances going forward. Nketiah is going to make us easier to mark because he doesn’t create as much jeopardy for defenders.

Burnwinter

With Nketiah up front, we should still be a bit more threatening than we were on average in the second half of last season. Not a disaster, but a step down that'll likely snuff out what was already a marginal hope of a title run. Jesus's signing was the puzzle piece that transformed our performances.

Claudius wrote:
I think folks are underestimating the massive gap between these two players in our ability to generate chances going forward.

Alright, but let's not forget that despite Jesus's undoubted capacity for mayhem, he hasn't scored in two months in the league. Martinelli and Saka terrorise defences on around the same level.

Haven't seen that much of João Félix, but I don't love the idea of going to a Mendes player to solve this kind of problem. Félix looks set to be embroiled in a lot of high stakes Machiavellian transfer nonsense through January, and I'm not sure any club gets a good price from that shopfront. We are a good side these days, and the unfortunate by-product of that is that it's hard to find players who'll level us up.

Edit: Stillman's column linked above is spot on. And occurs to me recalling Balogun isn't a good idea, much better to let him play out the Uber Eats season.

Big Willie

http://www.besoccer.com/new/amp/scared-jesus-turns-to-ronaldo-in-injury-378980

Just seen this article. It's old, from a number of years ago, and I came upon it reading some stuff about R9 after watching the BBC documentary but it made me wonder if it's a recurrence of that injury which took him longer than expected to recover from. Also questioned whether he has had any more problems with the knee since then. Hoping this doesn't become a thing

Pepe LeFrits

How much will his absence hurt us?

goon

We will find out soon enough I guess. Heard Merse suggesting we will miss out on top four if he’s out because Eddie isn’t a PL striker. Important to get a few good results under our best so we can quickly silence that sort of nonsense.

Pepe LeFrits

@goon you know numbered lists typically have more than 1 number

goon

How many numbers does your forum glitches list have? 🫢

JazzG

Unless we get reinforcements or Eddie steps up massively this will be a massive loss for us. Even though he wasn't scoring for us his all round game was superb and gives the opposition CBs hell all game.

Don Pacifico

As one of Eddie's critics, I actually feel we should have more faith in him to step up. I also think that other players in the squad will need to be stepping up to make up the shortfall, which given the fact we play a team-game that doesn't rely on superstars to create/score all our goals, I think is very possible. Fundamentally, if we weren't willing to use him, we shouldn't have given him a £100k pw contract.

Nevertheless, I understand that some people will be still be preoccupied with Jesus on their minds at this time of year...

Herbas

Relying on Nketiah for the next 3 months probably should be enough for top4, but that's a massive step down from being in the first place with sizeable points lead. In any case, that puts pressure on Martinelli and Saka for more goals.

JazzG

True but I don't think we will finish top even if we kept our players fit & had a good window. We have been playing out of our skin and Man City haven't got started. I think from where we are Top 2 would be what I'd hope for, especially as the others around us have looked flaky.

Even if we dropped lower, as long as we get Top 4 that would be a massive achievement when you look at what we are up against.

Qwiss

We should definitely be very focussed and up for the title fight. If we come up short so be it but from here any lower than top two would feel like a real disappointment.

Pepe LeFrits

Hoot!

I am Arsenal Till I Die

Can't wait to have him back. Hopefully he's ready to go by the end of the month because starting March we will have two games a week and we are going to need everyone.

goon

Yeah, a comeback game or two to get how up to speed before the March international break would be great. Those tough April fixtures are when his quality and experience will really come into play.

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