‘Are you crazy?’: Attacker says his family thought he was insane for leaving Arsenal

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Willian has opened up on his departure from Arsenal, and he says that his family thought he was crazy for leaving the Gunners.

Speaking on The Fulham Fix Podcast, the winger touched on his departure from the Emirates and he said that he had to leave Arsenal because he wasn’t happy.

Willian, famously, left the Gunners without a penny’s worth of compensation, leaving behind two years of his contract on a reported wage of £220,000-a-week.

As you can imagine, his family were a bit miffed by the idea of leaving over £20m on the table in wages, but the Brazilian, quite rightly, said that money isn’t everything.

Willian’s family weren’t happy

The winger spoke about his departure from Arsenal.

“I decided to leave because I didn’t get pleasure and I didn’t feel happy. It was difficult,” Willian said.

“People say that to me, ‘are you crazy? You’re going to leave this money?’ But money is not the first thing, you have to be happy where you are and go into training with a smile on your face. People in my family and people close to me would say ‘are you crazy, are you going to leave this money there?” Willian said.

Says a lot

The decision to leave Arsenal for the grand total of £0 says a lot about Willian and the way he thinks about football.

This isn’t a man who is in it for the money, he genuinely plays for the love of the game, and you’re seeing that now at Fulham.

He’s improved massively at Fulham, and that’s because he’s been put into a team that trusts him under a manager who has confidence in him.

You could say that Willian was silly to leave Arsenal, but at the end of the day, happiness matters more than money.