Gabriel Jesus has made Arsenal a team of winners closing on the ultimate prize

A ccording to the song that echoed from Craven Cottage’s away end, to the tune of Do Wah Diddy Diddy, Gabriel Jesus is a dab hand at turning water into wine. Arsenal have savoured the aftertaste during his three months out injured, his absence barely felt by a side whose supreme energy levels have not let up, but it still felt a significant moment when he jogged on for the latter stages of this Thameside cruise.

Mikel Arteta’s players had swamped a poor Fulham and quickly ensured the outcome was beyond doubt, and here came a new flex in a symbolic return for the player who first propelled their levels through the roof.

“He’s changed our dynamic, changed our belief and put the team in a different status,” Arteta had said before kick-off. The calculated hope upon signing Jesus last summer was that his star quality would rub off on those around him and create winners: his exertions from the front and sheer knowhow would wind everyone else up, and then you could watch them go. It has worked out exactly that way. Even without Jesus, Arsenal have been playing with fire, precision and relentlessness that would not have been possible before he arrived.

That is hardly to say Jesus has not been missed. The appetite for news of his comeback had been voracious all week; when Arsenal travelled to Lisbon for their Europa League last-16 tie on Wednesday breathless rumours of his presence in the party swept social media, neither the club nor Arteta doing anything to dampen them. In fact he was tucked away at London Colney limbering up for this one, before emerging from the bus here to a palpable buzz. When he replaced Leandro Trossard 13 minutes from time, Arsenal’s fans maintained one long, unbroken note before breaking into cheers