Mikel Arteta
Mikel Arteta
A free agent who was promised the keys will remember the sentence. Three years on a contract and three months of patience are different numbers.
Cross-London moves at 32 are sold as a new team built around one player. They survive only if the team is actually built that way.
Unhappiness is the explanation players give when the goals do not come. The appearances are still on the record.
Willian has said joining Arsenal from Chelsea in 2020 was a “big mistake”, and that he asked to leave after three months. Speaking on The Obi One podcast, the 38-year-old said Mikel Arteta told him he would be the main man. He signed a three-year deal, made 37 appearances, scored once, and left by mutual consent after one season to rejoin Corinthians. He is currently without a club, having left Gremio in August.
He wanted three more years at Chelsea. Chelsea offered two. Arsenal offered the role.
“Arteta said to me, ‘We’re going to play like this, going to play like that. I want you to be the main guy. We’re going to build the team around you, blah blah blah.’
“He said, ‘I want to give you the key of the club.’ When you hear that, obviously I love Chelsea but it was the last year of my contract.
“At 32 years old I was thinking three years more, London, my family love London. Then I decided.
“To be honest, I should have stayed. But at that moment I was thinking maybe the best solution was to go there.
“I signed for three years there but it was not good.”
He was happy on arrival. “First when I arrived there, I was happy. I was motivated to go and to express myself like I did at Chelsea.
“But three months later I said to my agent, ‘I want to leave.’
“It’s because I got frustrated. Because, of course I’m not saying it’s their fault, but when you heard a lot of things and then you join the club and things are not what they told me, I got frustrated.
“I said to him (agent), ‘I made a big mistake.’
“When I was there, I was seeing some situations that I said to myself is not going to change.
“It didn’t work. Also because of that I couldn’t play well, I was not happy, and when you are not happy you cannot perform.
“Money cannot buy happiness. It was the best contract of my life there, but I was not happy.”
Arteta has not responded. The 2020 squad was not built around a 32-year-old winger, and the table showed it. Willian’s version is a broken promise and a lost year. The numbers are 37 games and one goal. He says he should have stayed at Chelsea. Chelsea had already decided two years was enough.