Edu Gaspar has given his support to under-fire Arsenal star Willian following his performance in the loss to Burnley.
The Brazilian was in poor form during the 1-0 loss to Sean Dyche’s side with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s own-goal the only strike of the game.
In an interview following Sunday’s loss, the technical director claimed that the £17.10m-rated former Chelsea man will prove to be a good signing further down the line.
Edu said: “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. For me, Willian is a question of time to be performing how we know he can.”
“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.” (via The Mirror)
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It’s nice to see the director who shares the same agent as Willian backing him to death. In all seriousness, the comments from Edu are an insult to the supporters, who have had to watch one of the more underwhelming starts to life as an Arsenal player.
No goal in 15 games across all competitions whilst coming off the back of two Premier League trophies with Chelsea proves shocking. You’d expect one of the more experienced players in the squad to be leading the way on the field, but, unfortunately, that’s not been the case thus far.
What proves even more confusing than his lack of goals is his lack of common sense. In the last two games against Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley, the winger has attempted 30 crosses with just five proving successful. The four centre-backs on show for the opposition were Toby Alderweireld, Eric Dier, Ben Mee and James Tarkowski. And with Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang not very good headers of the ball, Willian was aiming useless crosses into the area.
Defending an under performing player, especially an experienced one, is wholly irresponsible. Willian should be performing far better than he is and has no excuses for his underwhelming displays this season.
In other news, Jermaine Jenas believes that Arsenal missed one player during the Burnley defeat.
