Arsenal have confirmed the departure of Willian.
The 33-year-old joined last summer on a free and leaves after all parties agreed it would be best to terminate his three-year contract early. He will sign for former club Corinthians.
Seven assists and one goal in 37 appearances goes some way to disguising how disappointing his short tenure proved to be. Signed to add experience and creativity, he peaked on the first day of last season and rapidly went downhill after that. By the end of the campaign, he was making up the numbers on the bench.
While getting Willian’s huge wages off the bill is a plus, let’s not pretend he and his agent are walking away on anything other than favourable terms.
We gambled big on a stupid bet. And lost. There are lessons to be learned.
37 forgettable appearances.
Happy New year. Feels like we just signed Henry.
🍾🥂 Cheers dude!
I havent fuckin forgotten them!!
“there are lessons to be learned” but we never seem to. Such as extending Xhaka’s contract giving him licence to dump us in it straight away.
Thankfully I think he misses the Burnley game in which last season he got sent off at home and gifted them the equaliser away
We never learn it seems.
Anyway, more importantly Willian has gone just a few more by tomorrow night.
Exactly —-
No lessons learned handing out extensions to players like Xhaka.
We’re ultimately very fortunate that Willian didn’t fleece us for our stupidity, because he had every right to do so.
We are in an absolute mess
Lessons to be learned? Blogs, have you been paying attention to how this club is being managed?
It’s not Blogs, it’s Andrew Allen.
Xhaka vs Burnley is like Graeme Souness vs Pogba or Arteta vs a sensible line-up. They just can’t help themselves.
I have this feeling (could b my infinite optimism) that we won’t see arteta in 2 weeks when we play Norwich. Methinks he’ll have been fired by then
Now that would be something to celebrate.
To be fair Arsene was run out of the club for less and he had history here (and an understanding of how to coach a team).
That’s not fair. I thought he had one good game…haha
This is his best contribution to Arsenal
Remind me.
I know this isn’t a victory in any sense of the word, but still feels pretty damn good
He probably figured that staying with us was harming his reputation…
…and his waistline.
Even a loan move to Brentford is a step up.
I am overjoyed to read this. But for all the negative postings he has had on this site (mine included) I must say that I am truly impressed by the fact that he agreed to terminate a contract that could have guaranteed him a huge income just because he wants to play. He’s taking a massive salary cut. It does say something about the guy and I don’t think it’s wrong to wish him all the best
Unlike Ozil. Bloodsucking money monster
Voted in green just to tilt the balance a bit.
Agree, can’t think of another player who left so much money on the table. I thought he was here for the duration.
Is he? The no compensation is a rumour fed to newspaper but never confirmed by the club. Makes people look less bad but I bet if the club was being asked straight if Willian leaving still represented a cost to the club, they could not say no.
Uninspiring end to an uninspiring signing. However, the hysteria over the undeniable badness of the decision is just weird. Fans of every other PL club including recent title winners should be absolutely apoplectic if a free transfer is what counts as ‘wasting money’ these days. A lot of that anger should have been reserved for the manger who not only played him through bad performances, but also seemed to have few ideas about how to get something out of him, other than “play him where he played at Chelsea, with less creative responsibility”. But obviously, Willian didn’t arrive with a… Read more »
Football Fans On The Internet shocked to find unsupportable “he’s just here to enjoy a lazy final big payday!!!!11!!” conjecture to be complete nonsense.
By mutual consent – how much did that cost us? Probably a lot more than Gunnersaurus was costing on his departure!
Departure of our worst ever signing is a strange celebration.
Well it is a victory for Kia Joorabchian… A big victory. Played Arsenal like a fiddle.
The bullet went straight through. A bit of tissue damage, the wound obviously leaves a scar but no vital organs and no bone was hit. We live to f*ck up again some other time. Up the Arsenal.
On balance I’d now say it’s been a decent start to the season.
Anyone who thinks Willian gave up more than a few million of the 20 million he is still owed is crazy. Why do you think he signed the contract, because he loved Arsenal?
Not sure how anyone is downvoting this? It’s reality. This payout has cost Arsenal a fortune.
Exactly! There are reports that Arsenal is subsidising his salary for the remainder of the term and of course, why would the club confirm it publicly?! Not after what we’ve faced already with people paid to leave, bad signings, worst start in decades etc.
But when did facts get in the way of narratives?! So, it’s alright to let people think what they want to.
If the question is “why would he give up the salary?”, a possible answer is because his agent/some intermediary with influence wants to retain a relationship with the club. Doesn’t require him or anyone involved to be a saint.
That sits uncomfortably with people who want to rail about the evil of agents, without considering that players have few other ways of securing their interests when negotiating with, effectively, multi-billionaires.
Exactly, influence works both ways and in order to have a positive relationship with clubs agents also have to sometimes make concessions. What’s unique about the Arsenal fan base ,probably due to years of listening to Wenger’s prideful pronouncements, is this singular obsession with how evil agents are and how they must be avoided at all costs despite it never working to the clubs benefit. Dealing with agents is part of the job, if you base your recruitment on which agents you will or won’t do business with you’ll soon find yourself uncompetitive and guess what Arsenal hasn’t been truly… Read more »
There’s nothing wrong with a contracted employee expecting to receive fair compensation on a signed agreement.
The fact that Willian is prepared to leave, even with a portion of his wages covered by the club, rather than continuing to enjoy being a multimillionaire in London doing a couple hours work a day is a credit to him. Plenty of other players would have sat on it for two more years.
Yup. Would’ve been completely fine if he got paid out in full, Kroenke can afford it. Hasn’t stopped us bringing in six decent-to-good players this summer.
Whether or not we make money in the transfer window should’ve never been a concern of fans, glad we are moving past the self-sustaining fiction of the last 15 years.
If club owners want to keep costs under control, they should sit around a table and figure out a formula, not try to manage the expectations of already circumspect fans.
Edu & Arteta’s masterstroke in a nutshell. I have almost zero faith left in them, either in regards to coaching or spotting talent.
I have TOTAL zero faith on them.
It is not even about their ability, they are plain corrupt. Signing Numerous Kia clients on big wages, not even one of them adding any value to the team. Openly partying with Kia, and taking kickbacks behind the scenes.
Edu and Arteta are corrupt, it is very clear. If they were politicians, they would be facing trial already.
“Edu and Arteta are corrupt, it is very clear.” What a complete plonka you really are!
“it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled” – quote attributed to Mark Twain.
I can understand people disagreeing with my statement, but to call names clearly validates the above quote. Some people, who still spends money on the club, via Merchandizes or subscriptions, finds it difficult to swallow that their hard earned money is being spent as kickbacks to scrupulous agents and expensive yachts. The sooner you realize it, the better.
Yes, calling people names on the internet proves that 2 completely different people are corrupt! The truth is Ex-Gooner, the transfer bung is as old as transfers, and generally club ownership as well as managers have used it to extract money out of clubs. One of the things i find truly bizarre is the complete logic breakdown in the insinuation of the Willian transfer, who is a highly decorated,70 cap Brazilian international, on a free as being possibly corrupt and one of the clubs worst pieces of business ever don’t apply the same logic to Lucas Peres, a nomadic journeyman… Read more »
Some people don’t get offended by name-calling, but are highly offended by slander.
Politicians on trial? Sure about that one…?
I mean, in most democratic countries, yes!
Imagine this – A politician makes a deal with a middleman/company, which anyone can clearly see as a bad deal (Ahem, Willian). Now its not only one, but numerous such deals. You also know that the guy is close to that middleman. You pressurize your cabinet to make the deal. Then you see the guy partying with the middleman in a luxury yacht.
Tell me, what was clearly bad about signing Willian?
He’d scored 9 goals the season before, had several years of experience in the league, a serial winner including 2 premier league titles and had played 70 matches for Brazil, what is clearly bad about that deal?
A: He was always inconsistent.
B: He was in his 30s
C: £200k per week.
D-Z I’ll leave for now.
Name me a player who isn’t inconsistent?
B: Ronaldo and Messi are in their 30’s would you turn them down as well?
C: A free transfer means higher wages, but he still ended up half the price of the year we had Lucas Peres!!
Should never been signed in the first place and we are fortunate that he agreed the termination and didn’t stay to drain on our resources.
Please use the £20million wisely for a change.
Fair fucks to the guy.
Credit where it’s due, others may not have been as honourable
Indeed! And we know a few!
Fuck that..Hes only bailing cos were shit and hes getting alot of flak for his part in it.. If we were top 4 or pushing he would hang around for his paycheck.
Lol. Still this guy can’t get any credit? He was not good enough at Arsenal. No doubt about that. But nearing the end of his career and he gave Arsenal a pass on over 20M, and is accepting 70% pay cut to play at Corinthians. Can’t imagine too many players, let alone any of us fans would have done the same in his position… even if we would like to think we would. Clearly a guy who values playing ball more than the money it makes him. He’s earned my respect. But won’t miss him at Arsenal, that’s for sure.
The situation today with Niles and some player choosing the spuds over us has left me bereft of reason or empathy for anyone at the club except the Hale enders.
He still got paid around 10 million for doing fuck all last season so let’s not pretend he’s doing us a favor.
Technically he’s doing us a favor by foregoing the other 20m he was contractually owed
I would bet anything that neither he nor Kia left empty handed. They got a nice parting gift $£€ to go their merry way.
We’ve spent huge money, credit to the club. We do need to make back some of it.
“There are lessons to be learned.”
There most certainly are indeed. Does anyone believe Edu and Arteta are capable of learning them though?
Edu, maybe. Arteta, unlikely.
Frees up space and wages. Happy with that.
We’ll have paid him off to some extent so it wont free up as much wages as if it never happened.
With Xhaka’s new contract, it’s back to square one.
Ballsed up the Eddie deal though, and still got 6 or 7 players we can’t shift. Plus ANM who’s now going to be a problem. Let’s see what happens tomorrow but I don’t hold much hope for anything good.
Fair play to him though for giving up such a huge amount of money. Not a lot of players would do that.
Some would, it’s a bit of a some for him.
for average joe it’s life-changing money
Don’t be naïve. The guy is probably not giving up anything substantial. They’ll hide it in the budget. And he’ll get a good contract somewhere else.
Arsenal are Corinthians’ new shirt sponsor? Probably unrelated.
If it’s true he tore up his contract then that is unheard of. The criticism must’ve really got to him. Classy statement and gesture, would’ve been so easy to slink off into the darkness.
There you go! Nasty comments from fuckers like me have saved this club £20million! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I have massive respect for Willian for wanting to end his contract and move on. He could have done an Ozil and just dragged this for 2 more years. Let’s get rid of Arteta, Edu, and Xhaka and get things sorted.enough of this fking mess.
Probably a very nice parachute payment.
#per berg why are you so cynical and negative. If he has walked away from £20m he did not have to, then fair play and we should give credit where credit is due not try and undermine a gesture.
We have no knowledge of a parachute payment.
And we have no knowledge there wasn’t a parachute payment.
Considering how little of a shit he gave when he was actually supposed to be playing, my respect for Willian is non-existent.
I’m hearing that Willian is gutted that he doesn’t have your respect.
This feels like a new signing!
A good day for Arsenal. Utterly wretched signing.
The worst signing in this club’s history.
That’s saying something from a club that signed Mikael Silvestre, Gervinho, Park Chu-Young, Igor Stepanovs etc etc
All of them done more than Willian.
No they didn’t, the reaction to Willian has been demented and hysterical
Quite a feat to rich that summit….and he done it so easily.
A few in this current squad could lay claim to that title- Cedric.. not as financially costly maybe, but points a reputational damage have got to be up there.
Nope. I think our manager’s got Willian beat for that. Thanks to him, we have a bunch of unwanted records and two-thirds of the squad dropping in value.
He said he’s got rid of the people who were against the club. I hope he’s including himself in that group.
Wow. We did something right. Yay. Forgive me for not being over the moon.
You should be.
I’ve just cracked open a bottle of champagne, much to the amusement of the wife and kids.
🥂🍾 Fucking Cheers! 🥂🍾
Sorry 2 rain on ur parade, but this “right thing” seems 2 b more willian than arsenal
Highlight of the season this far
It’s like we scored a goal finally, only to find out it was an own goal..
Tbf, until he turned out to be shit, he was an exciting addition. He once was a fucking good player. Yeah, 3 years was criminal but he was genuinely world class in his day. Gutted he never performed for us. I think Chelsea reject status can’t be overlooked, professional or no professional.
I agree with that. He was always class against us as well. I believe Chelsea were trying to extend his contract though, but weren’t offering the number of years Arsenal did. Regardless, he came to Arsenal after an injury and he definitely looked a shadow of his former self at Arsenal.
A shadow of his former self would have been an improvement.
He was more like a caricature of his former self, drawn on a toilet wall in crayon by a blind child.
It wasn’t crayon that child used.
No, no he wasn’t.
Glad this was resolved faster than the Ozil situation.
True that. The last thing we would need this season is another saga like that one
If it’s true about how much money he has written off, then (putting all analysis of his performances aside) Willian deserves a lot of credit for this. Hats off to him.
Big win for Corinthians and Arsenal and seemingly willian.
only losers here are us fans for having to watch him, reiss for missing out on minutes and my favourite lose of the three! Kia 😂
I know most people will be delighted to put this experiment where it belongs, but… would it have worked under a different manager? Has Arteta made a player ‘click’ since he took the reins? Tierney perhaps. Maybe Saka.
ESR, Odegaard. The real trouble seems to be when MA starts to ‘click’ someone only for that to fade or subject to changing winds, thinking AMN, Chambers, Gabriel, Martinelli, Partey, Nketiah, Willock, Nielson to a lesser extent Holding, Elneny and in between stunning bouts of astonishing stupidity Xhaka
Our first win of the season
Erm…..no it isn’t.
Good. Now we are a bit less shit than we were this morning…
Lessons learned,don’t sign surplus overage players from other big teams. Edu , put that on a post- it on your lap-top and delete Kia fast dial on your phone.
Now we can go on and buy a 50 kg right back with a long injury record and soft mentality. Would fit the team 100%.
Thank you the 3 assist on your first game, and thank you for tearing.up your contract early. Yes he performed badly, yes he underachieved massively. But good riddance our supporters were awful on him. We didn’t exactly make it easy for him, did we? When times are though we should stand by our players, but we didn’t exactly do that either. He’s a person, who were professional his whole stay at Arsenal. He was 32 years old, got served a good contract, who would have turned that down? None. He never complained, and he even teared up his contract 2… Read more »
👊👊👊
Bang on. Willian himself was never the problem. He was made an excellent offer and he took it. He would have been mad not to. I wish him well to be honest, I hope he can play to a decent standard in Brazil and enjoy his football.
“Our supporters didn’t make it easy for him”? Pal, I don’t know what world you’re living in, but this lazy motherfucker earned around 10 million last season, despite the fact that he did fuckall to earn it. “He never complained?” What the fuck was he supposed to complain about? He made more money than most of us will make in our entire life and we got NOTHING in return. Indeed less than nothing, because he prevented Pepe’s progress and later ate up minutes which would have gone to Nelson, who now has no value. Whether it’s one year or three,… Read more »
Don’t hate the player hate the game
A lot of people sound like you. Angry, vindictive, nasty. I wish they would support a different club.
He could complain about the online – including racist – abuse he received (which, by the sounds of things, was almost certainly sent by you).
I have never, ever, sent abuse directly to any player, manager, staff member, fan, journalist, mascot, or anyone else in any way associated with this club, any other club, or to anyone generally. I detest racism in any form, and I don’t think Willian being hands-down the worst signing in the club’s long sorry history of terrible signings has anything to do with his race, Edu’s race, Mikel’s race, Raul’s race, or his vampire agent’s race. I don’t think writing that an overpaid shit player is shit and overpaid on a fan message board constitutes abuse. It constituted an accuate… Read more »
I think you need phycological help.
Willian isn’t near the worst signing in Arsenal’s history, he’s not even the biggest waste of money. Ozil’s contract cost us twice the amount per year, Lucas Peres’s single season also cost us twice the amount!
Get a grip!!
I really wouldn’t put it past you.
Bravo! I know it’s not up against any stiff competition, but that has to be one of the best contributions to the comments’ sections I have ever read on this blog. If we didn’t have such shit supporters, we’d have won more than three league titles under Arsene Wenger.
Yup, it’s the shit Pollyana supporters like you who are the reason the club hierarchy haven’t been held to any standard – which is why we’re in the shit we’re in. If it were up to the fans, Granit Xhaka would no longer be here, bringing shame on the club, the idea of professionalism, and the game of football every time he’s selected. Same for our “manager”, who’s very happy to pull rank and drive away promising prospects who genuinely love this club for the tiniest infraction, all the while excusing the catastrophic clusterfucks he and his lapdogs commit every.… Read more »
Absolutely, when the fan’s accepted the likes of Campbell, Pires and Ljungberg being replaced by the likes of Sylverstre, Hleb and Rosicky the club was on the long spiral downwards. That’s how long the standards have been dropping!!
At least he did the ‘honourable’ thing.
The worst part of this saga was how long Arteta persisted with him despite it being very clear it wasn’t working out. There were no guarantees with Reiss Nelson but his Arsenal career essentially died its death last season and that was largely due to Arteta desperately hoping he would be proven right on Willian.
This was on Arteta from start to finish.
Failure on a massive massive scale.
Arteta is more akin to Wreck it ralph at this point. Accidentally tearing the castle down with every inept move he makes. From the big decisions to the small. What has he got right since being here.
did win the FA Cup to be fair
Yeh Arteta constantly trying to play him into form looks so embarrassing now. He also took Pepe minutes
The owners need to be held accountable for the succession of awful decisions made.
#kroenkeout
The Kroenke’s have no clue which players are good. They give the money to the other twats making these terrible decisions.
Quit fishing for cheap likes. This is wholly on the manager.
This seems to be a very decent act from Willian – credit to him. Wishing him all the best on his return home.
On another note, enough bashing the club. Just stop it.
Seriously. What players would want to come play for a club whose fans are so corrosive. Even bashing our new young England international keeper before he put on the shirt. Flew a banner to force out the greatest manager our club has ever seen. We used to be a club with class. I guess it was just because things were going well then. It’s easy to be classy when everything’s going well. True character shines through in the difficult moments. Perhaps it’s less of an Arsenal problem and more of a social media culture problem. Regardless, I always used to… Read more »
This. The downvotes prove your point. Someone can justifiably want Arteta and the whole bunch gone without sounding hysterically petulant. Cf. James’ point on the backend of the Arsecast.
Good god I miss Arsene, the man.
The downvotes can be explained as follows: the truth hurts – our friend has clearly hit a nerve, and good on him/her.
I miss Arsene too!
While your right the owners have absolutely taken the piss out of the fans for over a decade while the fans stayed mostly quiet and respectful. Our slip to where we are now wasn’t overnight. It started the moment the Kroenkes were brought in. Wenger was somehow able to keep us relevent between 2007-2015, others will have a different time table to correct me but all the incidents you cite are a decade build up of all types of negative emotions. Wenger for example never should have been treated like that but he was the Kroenkes golden boy because he… Read more »
Stop making excuses for these useless fans. They CHOSE to trust our enemies in the media, like Adrian Durham, over Arsene Wenger and others in the club. If the fans had shown unity with the club, we’d have won league titles again after the long drought. Even some of our “legends” are culpable – Alan Smith and Martin Keown were perhaps the two greatest snakes of them all.
Don’t forget AFTV
Enemies in the media? Are we at war or are we a football club?
Pointing out that the club was being poorly run and not in keeping with such a historic institution hardly make people our “enemies”.
This is basically complete nonsense, not a word of it is true. The truth is Kroenke is/was a discerning buyer, he invested in what was ranked by Forbes as the 3rd most valuable football club in the world and quite rightly assumed is was being run correctly. There’s no evidence money was ever denied to Wenger, there is however plenty of Wenger publicly refusing to spend money. Arsene Wenger invented his our vocabulary to articulate his own displeasure at spending and hubris. “No value in the market”, “Financial doping”, the arrogant pronouncement that we “made stars, not buy them”, the… Read more »
Well said buddy! The irony that our characterless fans demand some character from our players. They leave the stadium well before the match is finished, yet they demand our players fight until the end.
They’ve paid their dues, their hard earned money and given up their free time to actually give a shit – it’s a fucking football match not a fascist meeting; they can choose to leave whenever they fucking well like.
Wow. God help our recruitment team.
Now I can go to sleep with a bit less anxiety about what will haunt me the next season. I see that as a plus!
Btw: Willian giving in, seeing, that this was pure shit, restores a bit of faith in humanity.
Good news. Another total fuck up we have made in the last few years.
Credit to Willian for getting this worked out, though there was probably an unmentioned payoff.
And honestly, he was a good player at one time. It was worth a punt. Just maybe not at the reported wages and more importantly, not for 3 years.
Now STOP buying cunts from Chelsea.
And start buying cunts from Barca 🙂
That Chelsea part is redundant
Good to get him off the wage bill; but speaking of gambling, we will yet gamble and lose again…someday. We will win some too.
That is the way of a football club.
You can’t truly learn in the strict sense of the word because every case is peculiar. You can have a player in his early thirties who becomes a great signing.
Arsene’s policy of giving 30 year olds a single-year rolling contracts robbed us of mature heads that would have brought leadership to the Fabregas and Co.
Probably too much to ask for, but I hope Arsenal have finally learned a lesson here. Stop signing Chelsea rejects.
Arsenal tomorrow: Welcome Jesse Lingard. What you guys didn’t say we can’t sign Utd rejects.
Even though he played for Chelsea, who I dislike more than any other club, I always thought he seemed like a decent guy. Never had bad press, just got on with the job. He’s given up money to leave, and that shows his character.
I salute him
No more “Willian starting” on my Shit Arsenal Bingo card, I guess it’s progress.
Just read his farewell statement and I have to say, the guy deserves credit for bowing out with grace and not money-grubbing like so many others. Signing him for three years was a massive mistake, but it was he who let Arsenal off the hook for paying the consequences. Fair play to the guy.
Fuck off and goodbye. Prick. Cygan and Bendtner get statues compared to this guys input.
Real mature.
I think you’ll find that YOU are the prick and hastily need to fuck off.
Who at this club has learnt any lessons in the last 15 years?
The best takeaway here is that it takes the temptation for the manager to fall back on him away. Good cess to him, just wasn’t the right fit.
This was a player that Arteta wanted despite Bloggs pushing his Kia agenda. Now need Poundland Pep to announce his resignation!
Blogs’ loyalty to Arteta is actually quite remarkable.
its his obession with his lego hair!
No doubt a relief for all concerned. One of our worst ever signings. At least he did the decent thing and didn’t hold the club to the contract.
Unbelievable that people have downvoted you. A totally reasonable way to put it.