Former Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus has spoken out about a tough period he had during his time at the Etihad Stadium.
The Brazilian spent five-and-a-half years at the Manchester club between January 2017 and July 2022 before he joined Arsenal in a deal worth £45m.
Now in the middle of his second season at the north London club, the striker has shared some details about one particularly difficult time he endured while at City.
Jesus speaks out about tough City period
Speaking in a recent video on the Amazon Prime Video Sport YouTube channel, Jesus had this to say when asked about the mental battles a player has to go through in order to win a Premier League title.
He said: “I learn with the life. I face a difficult time from 2018 to 2019. When you were young the things they are saying [on the] internet, you just get confused.
“Sometimes you believe you’re good like people say and sometimes you believe you’re no good like people say. So after this period that I suffer a lot, I come back to my principles and I focus on my game.”
Looking back over the 2018/19 season, the 26-year-old only started eight of the 29 Premier League games he appeared in, scoring seven goals and delivering three assists in the process.
His performances across the campaign ultimately earned the centre-forward a rather underwhelming overall season rating of 6.64/10 from WhoScored, making him the second-lowest-rated City player.
This makes it easy to see why Jesus had some mental struggles during this period in terms of hearing everything that was being said about him and having some doubts about his ability.
Having then gone on to score 14 goals and supply eight assists in 34 league appearances across the 2019/20 season, this shows how well the striker managed to get his mind back on the right track and improve his ability to deliver goal contributions.
