Gabriel Jesus has opened up on the incident that made him leave Manchester City for Arsenal.
The Brazil international worked under Guardiola for five years at the Etihad stadium before joining Arsenal last summer, a move he said made him feel “free.”
Speaking to the “Denilson show” podcast, Jesus said the turning point in his City career came during their home game against Paris Saint-Germain in November 2021 when he was named on the bench.
“There was a Champions League game, PSG, at home, in which he put Oleksandr Zinchenko as a false 9. Crazy thing,” Jesus said. “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.”
Jesus replaced Zinchenko in the second half and set up the equaliser before scoring a late winner to give City a 2-1 win.
“I didn’t warm up,” Jesus added. “I felt bad. Five minutes after Kylian Mbappe scored the goal for 1-0, [Guardiola] called me. I gave an assist and scored; we turned it around 2-1. In the next [Champions League] game [a 2-1 win at RB Leipzig], I thought I was going to play, and I didn’t play.
“There was a lot of that with him Guardiola, and it’s not easy. But one player evolves. It is really hard. That’s when I decided, I didn’t want to stay anymore. And I decided to leave.”
Jesus joined City in January 2017 from Palmeiras and won 11 titles with the Manchester club.
