‘They don’t know football’: Edu responds to fans’ criticism of £190,000-a-week Arsenal man

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Arsenal’s technical director Edu Gaspar responded to fans’ criticism of Willian after the Brazilian’s poor start to the season.

The former Chelsea man was brought in to add quality and experience to our attack. He was brilliant on his debut for us against Fulham, but his performances since have been extremely poor.

Mikel Arteta has kept his faith in the Brazilian despite his terrible form. Willian has been given regular opportunities, and his failure to capitalise on that has attracted a ton of criticism from fans, pundits and the media.

Edu was asked about fans’ criticism of Willian and our technical director seemed stunned. He claimed that people don’t know football if they think the former Chelsea man is a bad player, and he has backed his compatriot to come good very soon.

He told The Mirror: “Listen, everybody knows Willian. If people say that he’s not a good footballer then maybe they don’t know football because he has always performed at the top, top level. Then he moved.”

“What do you expect? Do you expect it straight away? Boom! Willian can be the best one? But he needs a little bit of time, it’s strange as well to say that but you need time to know the players who you are going to play with.”

“Sometimes you receive the ball in positions, sometimes in other positions, Mikel wants to play forwards, the other one wants to play to the side, there’s a little bit of adaptation. Players need time to understand how to train, how to work with the people, to understand a lot of things and I told him that I know that and I hope that people from outside understand that as well.”

Is Willian a bad player?

Willian’s form might have changed people’s opinion on him but he has proven that he is a top-quality player over the years. However, the reason he is receiving criticism is that supporters feel that his best days are behind him.

Willian doesn’t look anything like the player he once was. He isn’t a goal threat anymore and his creative side is also missing. His set-pieces don’t look that great either, which makes it difficult for supporters to see the point behind handing him a three-year, £190,000-a-week contract. (Spotrac)