Gabby Agbonlahor has rated Arsenal’s disposal of Willian as one of the top transfer businesses of the summer.
The Gunners signed the Brazilian as a free agent from Chelsea last summer as Mikel Arteta sought to add some experience to his squad.
The Gunners gave the attacker a 3-year deal after he showed top form in his last season at Chelsea.
However, his transfer to the Emirates proved to be a rookie manager’s mistake by Arteta, as he failed to hit the heights expected of him repeatedly.
The Arsenal boss did all he could for Willian to become as good as he was at Chelsea, but it never happened.
He was one of Arsenal’s top earners, but he struggled to justify his pay and the club’s fans turned on him.
With two more seasons left on his current deal, Arsenal risked having another Mesut Ozil scenario, but Willian agreed to end his contract early to move back to Brazil with Corinthians in the last transfer window.
Taking his huge wages off their expenditure was an enormous win and Agbonlahor claims that it is one of the best deals done this summer.
He told TalkSport: “Number five is Willian, I feel is a great deal for Arsenal to save ₤20m in wages.
“I didn’t want a similar situation to Ozil where a player at a club and not playing.
“So a great bit of business for Arsenal to get him out the door.”
Fair play to Willian he could have sat and picked up his ridiculously generous salary that Morecambe and wise thought he was worthy of but decided his playing time was more important 👊
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Let’s give the man credit for doing the decent thing.He had a very successful career with Chelsea and Brazil and I wish him well for the future.
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What a nice way to package a sh** sandwich
I’d like to think differently but I find it difficult to believe he just walked away from that fortune.
It’s too early to say Willian’s humongous wages are off our books entirely. I reckon Willian and his agent Kia will walk away with at least 10M in their pockets.
The same fans who don’t believe Arteta’s team building process believe this ripping up the contract malarky.
No one gives up 20 mill to play for peanuts.
Not an agent who depends on his clients salary. This was the same spin Ozil’s minders told us. Later when the heat had died down and no one cared any more the truth came out that the club actually payed 100% of Ozil’s remaining salary.
Something Willian and his greedy agent are completely cognizant.
6 months from now Willian will be forgotten
and that’s when the truth will come out.
If what they say is true the agent and Willian will have no difficulty showing us Willian’s bank
statements from September on.
Can’t blame Willian, he as well as AFC had a contractual agreement. Neither side was coerced into the deal. I’m sure anyone of you would fight tooth and nail to get what you were contractually owed…Some of you act as if the money were coming out of your very own pockets. SMH
So what is wrong with telling the full story…getting all the facts out, for the fans to judge for themselves?
Exactly, yes a contract is a contract but spinning a lie that he walked away with nothing is blatant misinformation.
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the very notion of evaluating the Willian acquisition based on whatever the fans may or may not have felt at the time of his signing is an entirely nonsensical endeavour as we had no say whatsoever in the process and it wasn’t the fans who were being handsomely rewarded for making the tough decisions which were in the best interests of a franchise supposedly embarking on a “rebuild” of sorts…instead of choosing the path less traveled, our manager choose the path of least resistance, as such he must bear the brunt of the blame
when he started to read his own headlines, following the FA Cup, it’s clear that he mistakenly used this as an opportunity to pursue a more selfish course of action, likely feeling like he and the team were further along than they actually were, so when this failed miserably, he should have been removed from the equation
for some inexplicable reason, minus possibly ownership apathy and/or incompetence, they enabled Arteta to reintroduce the “rebuild” narrative, albeit this time from a position of desperation…sadly, this should never have happened, especially if it was clear that a significant amount of funds would be available in the off-season
this, along with some of our more youthful assets, should have been used as a way to woo a much more credible managerial candidate to North London…now, if things continue on a sideways trajectory, or worse, any new manager will have a major task on his hands and likely no funds available to them, which will make it exceedingly more likely that those with the requisite CV will steer clear from what will be construed as an incredibly problematic undertaking
(reposted from an earlier article…I apologize if you read this already, but highly unlikely due to the late night time of it’s original posting)
Willian was always a very fit & athletic looking player at Chelsea, so it was a reasonable bet taking him on at Arsenal. I think his sudden decline was a huge surprise to everyone, and it’s good that a solution was found ASAP.
You have a valid point here. All players performing at other clubs become pale over here.Recent example is of Thomas Partey, a tip top player for AM, totally lost at AFC. I recollect Sanchez getting crazy at his team mates for not pushing harder in training, others who moved from arsenal found the rigors of the new club trainings. The later Wenger era saw reduced intensity of trainings thereby leading to matcday drop in performances and standards. Unai tried to shake up the things but succumbed to the ugly player power. Muikel disbanded the clique and the chucked out 2 of the 3 ring leaders, but is still stuck with mediocrity.No doubt the man is trying hard, he will turn things around for sure next week and beyond. It is a shame that Willian who was decent for CFC, flopped here and packed his bags to move out from the comfortable life in London. Our Giroud won them the EL,UCL (imagine netting 4 goals against Seville) and an FA. Training sharpens the mind and body and this was lacking in the Wenger ending era which is deep rooted in the core of the left overs.