Gabriel Jesus has revealed the reason why he left Manchester City for Premier League rivals, Arsenal.
Jesus left the Citizens in the summer of 2022 after 5-and-a-half years with the treble winners.
The Brazilian was a key part of Pep Guardiola’s squad as they battled to win many trophies together, including four Premier League titles.
Gabriel Jesus netted 95 goals and provided 46 assists in 236 appearances for Manchester City.
He joined Manchester City in 2017 from Palmeiras for a transfer fee worth £27 million, penning a four-and-a-half-year deal with the club.
However, the 26-year-old decided to end his ties with the Manchester based club last summer.
The Brazilian joined former assistant to Pep Guardiola at Manchester City in Mikel Arteta and he has been impressive so far.
Jesus helped Arsenal return to the Champions League and he almost led the club to the Premier League title.
He scored 11 goals and provided 8 assists in 33 appearances for the Gunners last term.
The Brazilian shared the reason why he opted to leave Manchester City, indicating the lack of belief from Pep Guardiola and a changed role resulted in his decision.
Why Gabriel Jesus left Manchester City!
Gabriel Jesus speaking to the Denilson Show podcast said: “There was a Champions League game, PSG at home, in which Guardiola put Zinchenko as a false nine. Crazy thing.
“The day before, he didn’t even use Zinchenko in training, he had put me in as a striker”.
He also said that his teammate at Arsenal, Oleksandr Zinchenko, who also joined Arsenal from Manchester City last summer joked with him about the incident.
Jesus stated: “Zinchenko even joked with me saying “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”.
Jesus said he cried after Guardiola made the decision
Following the decision made by Pep Guardiola prior to a Champions League game to start Zinchenko ahead of him, Gabriel Jesus said he tearfully called his mother to tell her that he wants to leave Manchester City.
He said: “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.”
The 26-year-old said that it happened many times with Pep Guardiola and he decided that it was time to leave the club as he was fed up with the entire situation.
He said: “There was a lot of that with Guardiola and it’s not easy. It is really hard.
“That’s when I decided, I didn’t want to stay anymore, and I decided to leave.”
Shockingly, Manchester City came out victorious in the encounter with Gabriel Jesus deciding the day.
Jesus was a second half substitute in the encounter and he scored in the 76th minute to hand Manchester City a 2-1 win over Paris Saint Germain on the 24th of November, 2021.
But despite his match-winning goal in that match, Gabriel Jesus wasn’t even named as a substitute in City’s next Champions League match against RB Leipzig.
The Citizens were defeated by 2-1 in the encounter as goals from Liverpool’s latest signing, Dominik Szoboszlai and Andre Silva gave Leipzig the win.
Riyad Mahrez’s 76th minute goal could only halve the deficit as Pep Guardiola’s side were defeated by the German side.
Pep Guardiola’s tactics hasn’t always turned out right
Guardiola has gotten his hands burnt a couple of times due to his tactics, with many ascribing it as “overthinking”.
Manchester City lost in their first ever Champions League final showdown in 2021, losing by a lone goal to Chelsea.
However, he has etched his name in gold after he led the Citizens to the Champions League in 2023, defeating Inter Milan by 1-0 in the final.
This is not the first instance when players, past or present will be expressing their frustration over his seemingly autocratic man-management style.
Recently, he also had a feud with Joao Cancelo and that resulted in the Portuguese loan move to Bayern Munich in January.
