Kolkata: At one of football’s iconic venues, Gabriel Jesus found himself again. Two close-range finishes from the Brazilian striker and a brilliant long-distance strike from Viktor Gyokeres, who replaced Jesus, settled the issue between the Serie A and Premier League leaders and ensured that Arsenal will play the second match of the knockout rounds at home.
Seven wins in seven matches of the Champions League and in contention for a quadruple, Arsenal’s squad depth will be tested. It has been their Achilles Heel over the past three seasons but this looks different. Ricardo Calafiori and Piero Hincapie are injured, Martin Odegaard was an unused substitute but after resting seven players from the 0-0 draw at Nottingham Forest, Arsenal beat Inter Milan 3-1.
Returning to action in December, Jesus was one of those who didn’t start at the weekend. Less than two minutes after kick-off, he almost got to the end of a Bukayo Saka delivery before Manuel Akanji did. Ten minutes in, he capped off a sustained spell of possession from Arsenal by sticking a leg out from a defensive sandwich to direct Jurrien Timber’s shot past Yann Sommer.
Jesus’s brace, his first since December 2023 after nearly 11 months of recovery from an anterior cruciate ligament injury, was completed in the 31st minute. The header showed his fox-in-the-box instincts had not been blunted by the long lay-off. This was only his third start since the injury and the first in 2026. In the 70th minute, he sprinted to meet a Ben White pass. Soon after the hour mark, Jesus found Saka who delayed and was then denied by Alessandro Bastoni.
“We have been missing Gabi a lot,” said Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta. The bigger the game, the more comfortable he plays.”
With Jesus back, Gyokeres scoring and Kai Havertz on the bench in Milan, Arteta has a selection headache ahead of Sunday’s Premier League match against Manchester United. “If I was Gabriel Jesus now, I’d be saying ‘I want to start on Sunday’,” Wayne Rooney said on Amazon Prime.
That will have to come at Gyokeres’s expense and Arteta has let it be known that though the goals have not come with the frequency they did at Sporting Lisbon, he is happy with the Swede’s ability to drag defenders away.
Introduced in the 75th minute, Gyokeres scored with a delightful long-ranger after a build-up play that encapsulated how good Arsenal have been this season. It began with an outside-of-the boot pass from Gabriel Martinelli that would equal Luka Modric’s effort against Chelsea in 2022. Gyokeres tried to find Saka but though the pass was wrong, the ball sat up beautifully for him to curl it from range.
Struggling to beat Arsenal’s press initially, Inter made it 1-1 through a booming effort from Petar Sucic in the 18th minute that swerved outside of Martin Zubimendi and ended the first half forcing a double save off David Raya.
Lautaro Martinez felt he deserved a penalty after contact with William Saliba and Martinez’s replacement, Pio Esposito, came close with a chest trap and a swivel after Luis Enrique found him. Esposito then laid off a ball for Marcus Thuram who shanked the shot.
But in this contest of patient possession play mixed with quick counters, there was no doubting who were the better team. Arsenal’s qualification was assured after Manchester City lost earlier on Tuesday but ruthlessness and relentlessness are not character traits a top team puts on hold. They had 17 shots to Inter’s 18 but landed six on target, two more than the home team. This was the first time the 2024-25 runners-up had lost three in a row in the Champions League.
Saka had a good night even though Inter tag-teamed on him, Cristhian Mosquera paired Saliba in central defence like they were old mates, Leandro Trossard was good in a quiet, understated way and though Inter had nine players in the six-yard box, Arsenal again scored from a corner-kick, their 19th of the season. What’s not to like?
The San Siro, home to AC Milan and Inter and nearly a century of memories, will be demolished after a modern stadium with greater commercial promise is built. The red roof girders, the concrete towers, the place where Cameroon beat Diego Maradona’s men and where Rui Costa and Marco Materazzi stood side by side not as rivals but onlookers to a flare spectacle and red mist, will go because nostalgia cannot stand in the way of the future.
Called the temple of football, Scala del Calcio, it was a place Jesus had seen a lot of on television as a child. “To score here brings tears in my eyes because I always dreamed of being here,” he told Amazon Prime.
