Brazil boss Fernando Diniz has explained why he’s called Gabriel Jesus up to the national team squad despite the striker’s current injury absence.

Gabriel Jesus is out of action with Arsenal at the moment, missing the team’s last three games with an injury he picked up playing away to Sevilla.

Mikel Arteta has confirmed that he won’t be back in action on Wednesday for the reverse fixture, saying explicitly: “Gabriel [Jesus] won’t be fit.”

Yet Arsenal fans spotted a potential positive sign as Brazil opted to call Jesus up to their squad over the November international break.

For Arsenal, the break kicks off after this weekend’s game against Burnley, with Brazil playing their fixtures on November 16th (Colombia away) and 21st (Argentina home).

If Jesus is fit for those games, that would be a boost, as it would suggest he’ll be ready to play against Brentford when the Premier League returns on November 25th.

But Brazil boss Fernando Diniz has suggested he hasn’t been given any special insight.

In fact, Diniz claims he’s primarily called up Jesus because of what happened in the last break, when they avoided calling up Gabriel Martinelli only for the winger to prove his fitness before their games.

“In the last squad, we hadn’t called up Martinelli from Arsenal,” Diniz recalled (via Sport Witness).

“He didn’t report to the CBF (the Brazilian Football Confederation) in a very complete way, so we didn’t imagine that Martinelli would be ready to play against Venezuela and Uruguay, and [then] he was ready to play before our games.

“Because of this too, we’re going to bring Gabriel [Jesus] in to find out his real condition, because we still have 15 days to go until the games, so we believe he could be fit enough to play, because I like him a lot.

“We have 24 players on the list, and if anything happens to him we won’t need to change the squad.”

Martinelli and Gabriel Magalhaes have also been called up alongside Jesus, so there will be a strong Arsenal contingent for Brazil over the break.