New Arsenal striker Gabriel Jesus has revealed the exact moment that he decided to leave Manchester City, after Pep Guardiola made him cry by opting to play Oleksandr Zinchenko ahead of the Brazilian.
The Gunners forward made the move to north London last summer in a deal worth £45m, along with the aformentioned Zinchenko, and the pair played a massive role in Arsenal’s second-placed finish last season.
Jesus, asked to play the central striker role that he was often not given with the Cityzens, found the back of the net 11 times and grabbed a further 7 assists in just 26 appearances, despite missing three months of the season with a knee injury picked up at the World Cup with Brazil.
Now, he has revealed the exact moment he chose to leave City, explaining just how Guardiola left him in tears and demanding a move away.
“There was a Champions League game, PSG, at home, in which he put [Oleksandr] Zinchenko as a false 9. Crazy thing,” Jesus said on former Arsenal man Denilson’s podcast. “The day before, he didn’t even use [Zinchenko] in training, he had put me in as a striker. … Zinchenko even joked with me: ‘that day I felt bad for you.’
“Two hours before the game, there’s a team talk, the team eats, rests for 30 minutes and goes to the game. He told us the team, I didn’t even eat. I went straight to the room, crying, I called my mother to talk: ‘I want to leave.’ I’m going home, because he put [Zinchenko] on, and he didn’t put me on. He put a left-back there. I went crazy.”
6 months later, he got his move to Arsenal, where he appears to be enjoying his football again.
