Gabriel Jesus is not expected to play in Brazil's World Cup qualifier against Colombia football.london understands. The 26-year-old has been nursing a hamstring injury sustained in Arsenal's 2-1 win over Sevilla in the Champions League three weeks ago.

The Gunners believe this injury came about due to an increased load placed on Jesus not long after his return from knee surgery in the summer. Mikel Arteta told reporters earlier this month: "He hasn’t had a lot of muscle injuries [historically]. The load he’s had in the past few weeks [compared] to what he has had in the past, even when he was at City, has been very different, and he’s still adapting to it.”

The Gunners had hoped that Jesus would be able to stay in London for two weeks of recovery over the international break. However, Brazil exercised their right, under FIFA rules, to bring the 26-year-old over to their training camp near Rio De Janeiro in order to assess him themselves.

“In the last call-up, we hadn’t called up [Gabriel] Martinelli, from Arsenal," Brazil coach Fernando Diniz said. “He didn’t report to the CBF (Brazilian Football Federation) in a very complete way, so we didn’t imagine that Martinelli would be ready to play against Venezuela and Uruguay, and he was ready to play before our games.

“Because of this too, we are going to bring Gabriel [Jesus] to find out the real conditions, because we still have 15 days until the games, so we believe that he can be able to play, because I like him a lot. We have 24 players on the list, and if something happens to him we won't need to change the squad.”

New head coach Fernando Diniz has been keen to foster a tight-knit atmosphere amongst his Brazilian national squad and has wanted to make sure as many of his big hitters as possible are present for national team meet ups as possible. It is understood that Arsenal will be in close contact with Brazil regarding Jesus' fitness over the coming fortnight.

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Gunners sporting director Edu has a good relationship with the Selecao from his time working there between 2016 and 2019. This was used last year to have Jesus rushed home early from the World Cup for knee injury, despite tradition dictating that the former Manchester City striker should stay with the squad for the remainder of the tournament.

Jesus is unlikely to feature in Thursday night's match with Colombia, although there is a hope that he could make an appearance for Brazil when they take on Argentina next Tuesday. He is one of three Arsenal players called up to the Brazil squad, with Gabriel Magalhaes and Gabriel Martinelli also in the Selecao squad.