PRAISE JESUS!

Gab's going great Guns as table-toppers make statement

- ANDY DUNN

IN the pubs around the stadium, in the hospitality boxes inside the Emirates, on the screens by the food and drink counters, they watched events from the Etihad unfold.

And if the commentary and analysis was audible, the Arsenal supporters would have heard the same question time and time over.

"Now, how will Mikel Arteta's side react? That was a statement performance from Manchester City, the pressure is now on Arsenal." Pressure? What pressure? For Arsenal, this was a statement of their own, a statement made without producing their finest football, a statement that tells Pep Guardiola and City that the Premier League leaders are taking this title race in their elegant stride.

And Arteta did not even have to start his best player.

No Bukayo Saka in the XI that first took the field? No matter when Gabriel Jesus is back, is fit and is firing.

By the time Saka replaced Jesus, just before the hour mark, the Brazilian had put the contest way beyond a Leeds side that started brightly but faded alarmingly.

It would raise more than wry smiles among the City hierarchy if Jesus, making his first Premier League start in almost five months, proves to be a decisive player in the run for the finishing line.