Willian explains post with ‘difficult’ Conte emoji-ed out

Sarah Winterburn

Chelsea midfielder Willian has spoken about the difficulty of working with Antonio Conte and tried to explain the Instagram post featuring emojis over the Italian.

Willian had a troubled relationship with Conte, and when asked about new boss Maurizio Sarri by ESPN Brazil, he said: “I hope he is not like Conte. No, I’m kidding!

“For me, Conte was a manager very difficult to work with. His philosophy, his way of dealing with things is very complicated. There were a few games … Sometimes we just don’t understand. You’re playing very well, then you get substituted. I do not understand. There were two times when I got substituted and I went straight to the locker room. It was hard to work with him.

“But in life, we learn from these kinds of things. We learn so much from difficulties. There were two years when I stayed on the bench in so many games, coming in later in the game. But this is in the past.

“The important thing now is to talk about Sarri. From what I heard, I am sure he is a great manager, who does a great job with the team. I have high expectations for working with him.”

Willian won the Premier League under Conte and then the FA Cup last season, but Willian famously covered up the image of the manager in a post celebrating the Wembley victory over Manchester United.

He laughed and said: “My daughter was playing with my cell phone and she ended up putting those emojis over Conte!

“For me, since the beginning, since he arrived, I knew it would be hard. After the final … I got a plane right after the game to come to Brazil. When I got here, early in the morning, I was posting some champion pictures … Well, I was a bit too tired and ended up posting them like that.

“I don’t know, sometimes the manager doesn’t like you. I don’t know if any of you have been in this situation before. You just feel that the manager doesn’t like you, but he has to use you sometimes. But you feel that he doesn’t like you at all. You didn’t do anything bad, but he doesn’t like you.”

Conte also had problems with David Luiz and Diega Costa, and Willian described the moment he heard that the striker was deemed surplus to requirements at Chelsea.

“With Diego … I remember I was … It was after the regular season, I was in Australia with the Brazilian national team and Diego texted me. He said: ‘I’m leaving. Conte said he doesn’t need me anymore.’

“I said: ‘What do you mean?’ And he said: ‘He texted me saying that he doesn’t need me on the team anymore and I am not supposed to go back.’

“But you can’t lose a player like Diego [Costa]. It was a difficult situation.”