CITY Family farewell not a problem for Jesus
PEP Guardiola has backed Gabriel Jesus to cope with the departure of his family back to Brazil and believes it won’t have a detrimental impact on his form.
The 21-year-old spent the Christmas period with some of his friends and family, who had jetted over to Manchester, and found his best goalscoring run of the season as a result.
Jesus’ family arrived before the Everton game on December 15 and since they touched down the striker has scored seven goals in four starts.
But with mum Vera Lucia Diniz de Jesus, his two older brothers and his two-year-old nephew returning to Brazil, Jesus will be back on his own in his Manchester flat now.
Guardiola is confident he can cope with their return though and believes the club will rally around him.
“The players know they are in an incredible club who try to take care of all of us, all the people working in this organisation,” he said.
“The private life is the private life and if they need something we are there. We are there to help.
“But of course, we cannot substitute the mother and when the family can’t be there, it’s difficult.
“They have to handle the situation and of course he is not alone, he has friends. He has incredible relationship with the Brazilian guys, like Danilo, Fernandinho, Bernardo, many, many players here.
“I think it won’t be a problem for the next months.”
Jesus had struggled for form for much of this season but the arrival of his family gave him a lift that translated into better performances.
Guardiola admits a happy home life can play a role in displays on the pitch and insists City will do all they can to look after Jesus. He said: “Of course, normally when we talk about that, it’s about the performance of the players, the performance of the team.
“But we don’t know the private lives and the private lives can affect a lot their performance, shorter to medium term.
“When we are happy in our lives, we are better in our jobs. Sometimes we will judge the players and sometimes we really don’t know what is happening in their private lives and it is a big influence, week by week or game by game.
“You have to try to help them by doing all you can do, and tell them we are here. So any time when you have any problems it can happen, we are going to try and help. In the case of Gabriel, it’s like this. Beyond that I don’t know what we should do.”