When Gabriel Jesus latched onto a loose ball, dummied a defender and slotted low into the net against Lens in November last year the Arsenal striker set a new Champions League record.
It made Jesus the only player from any English club to score in each of his first four games of the season in the competition and appeared to prove that the Brazilian was back to his best.
“He is a tremendous player, a really important player for us. He changed our world,” manager Mikel Arteta had gushed a few weeks earlier.
Jesus scored again the following week in a topsy-turvy win at Luton and then 12 days later at home to Brighton but picked up a knee injury in early January that kept him out for a fortnight.
When he returned later that month, and despite still being in pain, he netted in a 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest that helped to sustain Arsenal’s flagging Premier League title hopes.
But almost nine months on, he hasn’t scored a goal in competitive football since.
Another lay-off followed the Forest game but he made 13 more appearances before the end of the season and has played nine times this term. Yet a goal has eluded him.
Now, more than two years after his arrival in a £45m transfer from Manchester City, his stock has never been lower and the 27-year-old is facing a fight for his future at the club.
Having been billed as a new start, Jesus’s time in north London has instead been characterised by false dawns.
Injuries have of course taken a toll, although as recently as July Arteta declared that the player had a “spark” back in his eyes after scoring in preseason.
Since then he has battled a groin problem and had to watch mostly from the subs’ bench as Kai Havertz has tightened his grip on the centre-forward spot at Emirates Stadium.
Havertz has six goals in 11 matches this season and has been scoring on average a goal every two games – 15 in 29 – since February.
The German’s form has made Arteta reluctant to leave him out or even take him off – he has played the full 90 minutes in 17 of his 18 starts for the club.
But with bigger challenges to come, tonight’s home fixture with Shakhtar Donetsk might be an opportune time for Havertz to have a breather and give Jesus another chance.
The Ukrainians are yet to score in the Champions League this season and have conceded 11 times in 11 games in all competitions.
Jesus has tended to produce his best on European nights, not just in his record-breaking exploits with Arsenal but also at City, where he scored 20 in 38 games.
Arteta could do with another regular goalscorer and Jesus should be him. A home Champions League game could be the occasion to get that spark back again.