Goal have announced the results of this year’s Goal50, and there’s space for one Arsenal player on this list.
The likes of Bukayo Saka, William Saliba and Martin Odegaard all had fair shouts of making the grade here, but unfortunately, none of them were deemed worthy of being amongst the 50 best players on the planet.
However, Gabriel Jesus did make the cut, and he ranked quite highly.
Indeed, Jesus was voted as the 22nd best player on the planet in 2022.
Jesus has been incredible since joining Arsenal in the summer, but even the most ardent Gunners fan may admit that there is some recency bias at play here.
As much as we all love Jesus, a striker who has scored just nine league goals in this calendar year probably doesn’t belong so high on such a list.
Yes, his off-the-ball contributions are also remarkable, but the reality is that, on the whole, this has been one of the less prolific years of Jesus’ glittering career to date.
There’s reason to believe that there is a whole lot more to come from the Brazilian at Arsenal once he returns from injury, but, on the whole 2022 wasn’t his best year.
However, the vote does have to be respected, and according to the fans who were polled, Jesus has been one of the very best players in the world over the past 12 months.
Interestingly, the Gunners’ summer signing ranked above some of Arsenal’s alternate striker targets such as Victor Osimhen and Dusan Vlahovic – so it’s clear to see that the wider footballing world believe Arsenal made the right call when signing Jesus this summer.
The striker has been brilliant since joining Arsenal, and if he keeps that level of form up, he could be even higher on this list next year.
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