Manchester City got back to their winning ways today and the man in the #9 shirt was the maestro who created most of the scoring chances. Gabriel Jesus, who has been rumored to be unhappy at the Etihad due to lack of playing time, showed his intrinsic value and his overt skills out on the right wing. Gaby normally plays striker as he is a natural center forward since his diaper days in Brazil, but Ferran Torres occupied that space today and Torres had a wonderful goal taken off the board for the softest VAR foul I have ever seen.
Jesus was not in his natural position, but he exhibited his appreciation of Pep’s team selection with him in today’s starting eleven. If Jesus was auditioning to knock Mahrez out as the staring right winger, today was a hell of a performance. Jesus hustled, harassed, and harried the Norwich left back with a relentless press. He didn’t let up all day. It was Jesus who flashed down the upper right channel, staying onside with the best tight rope walk you will ever see anyone do while sprinting. The geometric run instantly opened up Norwich’s back line, which Jesus exploited with a low pass on a frozen rope that forced the defender Krul into an own goal and gave City it’s first score of the season in the seventh minute of the second game.
Gabriel Jesus also got the 100 million pound man Jack Grealish his first goal, and it was only fitting that he did it in front of his new home fans in Manchester. It was a brilliant pass from Jesus and Grealish’s knees of steel redirected the ball to the back of the net on what looked like an actual miscontrol on the reception of the pass. After late substitutions that brought on Raheem and Riyad, Jesus switched to the left wing and he still had the most energy of any player on the pitch as the clock ticked closer to fulltime. Jesus also created a wonderful tap in goal for City legend Raheem Sterling by converting a turnover to a cross and Raheem couldn’t miss from there. Riyad and Aymeric also scored some magnificent goals off Norwich defender mistakes to cement a dominant City win 5-0. In reality it should have been 7 golazos, but we will take it and the three points.
Gabriel Jesus was rightly announced as the “Man of the Match,” because he was all over the place and created chance after chance for his team with Kevin Du Bruyne, the usual quarterback, sitting high in the stands today. Jesus was a bona fide soccer God today and he has definitely earned himself another start at the right wing spot on the next matchday. In the bible, Jesus is the son of God and deliverer of men who sacrificed himself for salvation. Today on the soccer field, Jesus was definitely the creator.