Some Arsenal fans may have thought we got one over Chelsea when we succeeded in signing Willian for free in the last transfer window.
The Brazilian had spent the last seven years at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea, and the club wanted to keep him.
The Blues offered him a two-year deal, but he wanted three years and joined us instead.
At the time, some fans and pundits were excited about the signing, I never was because I didn’t understand why we would want to sign a player that was edging towards the end of his footballing career on a three-year deal.
Willian must have wanted to prove me wrong when he provided three assists in his first league game.
But that was as good as we could get from him and he didn’t deliver in the league again until our last game against Wolves when he provided another assist for Gabriel Magalhaes’ goal.
In a nutshell, Willian hasn’t been who we thought we signed, if anything, he has been a shadow of the player that shone for Chelsea during Project Restart.
The Blues must have seen that he would only be effective for so long, and that is why they didn’t offer him a long term deal, they will be happy about that decision and laughing at us now. We thought we were smarter.
An article from Ime