"I wish I never left..." - Arsenal flop admits he massively regrets joining the Gunners
He regrets joining Arsenal.
Chris Byfield
Former Arsenal player Willian has claimed he regrets signing for the north London club.
The Brazilian spent seven successful seasons at Chelsea, before moving to Arsenal on a free transfer in the summer of 2020.
Indeed, he left Chelsea for the Gunners after the Blues only offered him a two-year deal to stay at Stamford Bridge.
In contrast, Arsenal offered the winger three seasons at the Emirates. However a dismal spell there saw him leave in the summer of 2021 after just 12 months, to return to Brazil, signing for Corinthians.
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When asked by Sky Sports if he regretted leaving Chelsea for Arsenal, Willian admitted: “Yeah. I wish I’d never left. Yeah.
“Of course, it’s easy to say something now, but when I stop to think about the whole situation then yeah, I say to myself I wish I’d never left.
“But it’s life. I’m happy now at Fulham - enjoying myself there, so this is life.”
On his unsuccessful spell at Arsenal, the 34-year-old added: “They are flying now.
“I don’t know, I think I came while it was changing a lot.
“I was excited when I signed with them, I was training hard but it just didn’t work.”
In a throwback interview Willian admitted that he was not happy at Arsenal, and wanted to leave the club just three months into his stay.
“I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t happy. That’s why I didn’t perform. I don’t want to go into the details,” Willian told Rio Ferdinand’s YouTube channel Five in 2021.
“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.
“It was big money that I gave up. 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.”