Admittedly, Arsenal did not spend anything in transfer compensation to afford Willian (33) on his free departure from Chelsea in the summer of 2020. But the Brazilian striker was one of the biggest salaries of the club from the north of London during his stay near the Emirates Stadium. A status that he has never been able to justify with the Gunners, as his performance was low and very disappointing, evidenced by his statistics with Arsenal (1 goal and 7 assists in 37 appearances with the shirt struck by the gun). Invited by Rio Ferdinand in the Five podcast of the former Manchester United defender, Willian returned to this very complicated passage in his career, using strong words. ” […] I decided to go to Arsenal, also because I had conversations with Edu and Mikel [Arteta]. They showed me a good project, showed me a lot of good things they wanted to do ”, he first explained, before continuing.
“I said I wanted three years, Arsenal wanted to give me three years, I wanted to stay in England, stay in London, my family was happy in London […]. I got a lot of fan messages on social media, but also because I was from Chelsea and I think if I was from another club the fans would have reacted better. But since I was from Chelsea and didn’t play well, because of them, I thought about it and had to leave. […] After three months, I told my manager that I wanted to leave. I don’t mean to speak badly of the club, it’s a great club, a great history, great players have played there, but it didn’t work. It was the most difficult period of my career ”, thus explained the former number 12 of the Gunners, which has obviously big on the potato. The termination of the contract of the one who returned to Corinthians was therefore the best thing for everyone to do.
