Serial award-winning Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola was his inimitable straightforward self as he hailed his Brazil star but candidly admitted he does absolutely no idea what the future holds for the Brazilian star at the Etihad come end of the season.
Guardiola enthusiastically hailed Jesus for the brilliant four-goal salvo that again catapulted Manchester City to a four-point Premier League lead by invoking a comparison of him to Barcelona great Hristo Stoichkov. Not only had Jesus notched 4 goals breathtakingly for the Sky Blues but the Manchester City forward also added an assist to Rodri in the 5-1 win over Watford that plied the pressure back on Liverpool ahead of their Merseyside derby against Everton tomorrow.
The Blues boss didn’t let any cats out of the proverbial bag as he refused to speak about Jesus’ future at the Etihad after talk had emerged earlier that the player will leave the club this summer after failing to nail down a regular place in the starting XI. However he did not hold back in lauding his player for his quality and said that his man of the match display was universally acclaimed in the dressing room and among the backroom staff.
“I said before, if there is one person in world football that deserves nights like Gabriel had, then it is him,” he said. “We are delighted for him and he helped us a lot. He helped us to win this game. Of course, the assist from Oleks [Zinchenko] and the assist from Kevin [De Bruyne] are brilliant, but he has to be there.”
But when it came to speculating on Jesus’ future, Guardiola said with refreshing candor:
“I want to tell you something; Gabriel [Jesus] is our player. I don’t know what is going to happen, but he is a Man City player. When he has days like today, I am the happiest man in the world!
“Every player is happy when they play 90 minutes all the time but at the end of the season whether he wants to extend, stay or leave, I don’t know or don’t care. We have less than one month. My only concern is the players will do everything to try and win, after that no one knows what will happen.
“If one person in the world deserves nights like this, it’s him. There is no one on the backroom staff or who knows him that isn’t happy for him. When you are so positive and generous as he is in every way, life and football can reward you.
“When he has situations like this we’re happy for him because he’s so generous. It doesn’t matter what position he’s in, we know how he fights for his mates. He’s fantastic.”