Marco Silva has claimed Willian is enjoying his life and football again - and is playing well enough to earn another contract at Fulham.
The former Chelsea and Arsenal star set a new record for a Brazilian of 265 Premier League appearances last weekend - breaking the record held by Manchester City legend Fernandinho. Willian, 34, won every domestic trophy and the Europa League with the Blues before an unhappy season with the Gunners.
And his return home to his first club Corinthians was cut short by “constant threats” to the 70-times capped international and his family. But the Samba star has refound his old rhythm by the banks of the Thames after signing a one-year deal in September.
And Willian has helped set the tone for last year’s Championship winners to sit in seventh place before Saturday’s visit to the Etihad Stadium. “He is a top-class player and he is enjoying his football again,” Silva said of the veteran.
“It is a great achievement (his appearance record) and a difficult one as well. He deserves all this noise around him right now because even with his career and everything he has done in his career, he is still a really humble football player, a good professional, so easy to deal with him every single day.
“He is always trying to learn even though he is 34. Always really pleased to come to training every single day and his performances have been really good. And I know that there is definitely much more to come. I don’t know if next season he will play again but he has the capacity to do it.
“Let’s see. I had the conversation with him before he signed and it was a good conversation between me and him. And we will talk again in the future. Now, we have to enjoy every single day with him and every single match he plays in our shirt.
“To see him happy is really important for me as a manager and to see our fans really pleased to see Wilian really pleased to be wearing our shirt makes me really happy as well. It is up to me to keep getting the best out of him. I want to enjoy having Willian with us as long as I can.”
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The feel-good factor at Fulham will be tested against Manchester City. Silva has yet to avoid defeat against Pep Guardiola in English football but Fabio Carvalho gave the visitors the lead in an FA Cup tie in Manchester in February, and the Portuguese promised to attack the champions again on Saturday.
“If you don’t attack them and try and score, your chances of getting a result are really low,” he said of City. “We had a good example in the FA against them. In the first half, we did that. We took many positives from that and we will try and do the same thing. We will try to attack them.”
Erling Haaland faces a fitness test on his foot injury but Silva said: “That is more for Pep than us. We will prepare for the game thinking he will play and we will have to wait to before the kick-off to know.”
