Arsenal striker Gabriel Jesus is confident he will end his goal drought and has urged his team-mates to use yesterday’s 1-1 draw against Southampton as a wake-up call.
Jesus has now gone five games without a goal and the £45million summer signing missed several good chances as Arsenal dropped points for only the second time this season at St Mary’s.
Granit Xhaka opened the scoring for the Gunners after 11 minutes but Southampton equalised in the second half through Stuart Armstrong.
Arsenal, and in particular Jesus, had plenty of opportunities to extend their lead before Armstrong scored on a frustrating afternoon.
But the Brazilian is confident he will get back to the fine form he showed at the start of the season after his summer move from Manchester City.
Asked why he struggled in front of goal against Southampton yesterday, Jesus said: “I don’t know, I really don’t know. If I know I can tell you!
“But the only thing I can do is keep trying, keep fighting, keep improving. Like I said, I am here to score goals, I am here to help the team with the goals. I understand that. Of course, the goals are coming back soon.”
Arsenal are still top of the Premier League and two points clear of Manchester City, but they appeared to tire in the second half against Southampton.
Jesus has refused to blame a packed schedule and, while he has admitted it will be tough given the number of games coming up, he has urged Arsenal to click back into gear.
“Sometimes you drop a little bit, but you have to realise and wake up,” he said. “That’s what we have to do.
“We have to concentrate more, focus more, be more aggressive with the ball, without the ball.
“I think everyone has the same games. We are trying to do our best to win the games, to win them as much as possible before the World Cup.
“We have to turn our minds and come back playing our game. Of course up front me, B (Bukayo Saka), Gabi [Martinelli] and everyone try to put the ball in the net.
“Now is the time, you know everyone is going to talk about us, about our performance, I just want to say to the team to be calm.
“This league is tough, it’s difficult. Everyone is upset. Now is a difficult time I think, the difficult time is coming. Everyone has to be alert and then focus more.
“We have six games before we stop for the World Cup, so we need to come back stronger because that’s football.
“We are young and I am still young as well. So we have to be more focused sometimes. We created a lot today but we were not finishing good.
“I put me in that of course, because I had some chances today. I could have scored one or two - and then we win the game.
“It’s hard, it’s difficult, it hurts, but we have to realise and wake up and improve and come back.”
