'I told my agent I wanted to quit Arsenal after three months – I had to find a way out'

Willian turned down a new contract with Chelsea to sign a long-term deal with Arsenal, but he soon realised he had made a big mistake and wanted to leave

Former Premier League star Willian begged his agent to get him out of Arsenal just three months after signing.

The Brazilian attacker made a cross-capital switch in 2020 after failing to agree a new deal with Chelsea, who offered him a two-year contract compared to a three-year deal with the Gunners. However, Willian, who now plays in Greece with Olympiacos, soon realised he had made a mistake and began lobbying his agent.

In an interview with Rio Ferdinand’s Five YouTube channel in 2021, Willian admitted he didn’t enjoy playing under Mikel Arteta, who was in the early days of his Gunners tenure after replacing Unai Emery. He recalled: “I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t happy. That’s why I didn’t perform. I don’t want to go into the details.

“When I arrived there I was happy, from the beginning I was motivated, I wanted to do well - new club, new mates, new project. But after three months, I said to my agent: ‘Please, I want to go’. I don’t want to speak bad about the club, because it is a big club. Arsenal has a big history.

“In football, big players played there before as well. But it didn’t work, it didn’t work. It was, of course, the most difficult time of my career."

Willian did see out the 2020/21 season, which was played behind closed doors because of the pandemic, at the Emirates before rejoining former club Corinthians after having his Arsenal contract cancelled. He later returned to London with Fulham, leaving for Greece last month.

“It was big money that I gave up [to leave Arsenal],” he added. “But sometimes money is not the most important thing in life. I think you need to be happy, get pleasure every day waking up in the morning to go to train. I wasn’t having that.

“So I said to myself, with my family, I cannot stay here, I am not happy here. I have to leave, find a way out, leave the club, because if I stay I am going to stay the same. For me, it’s unfair to stay in a place that you don’t want to stay just because of the money. For me, it was that.”

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Explaining his decision to leave Chelsea, despite having a contract offer on the table, he said: “It was difficult to decide, because I wanted to stay at Chelsea.

“But I wanted a three-year contract and Chelsea say: ‘No, we want to give you two years’. At the end of the season, I decided to join Arsenal and also because before we had conversations with Edu and Mikel [Arteta] as well. They showed me a good project, they showed me a lot of good stuff that they want to do. It was because of that.

“I say [to Chelsea] 'I want three years, Arsenal wants to give me three years, I want to stay in England, I want to stay in London, my family is happy in London. Maybe it is a good opportunity to go there and continue what I am doing'.”

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