Willian: Confidence rising.

 It’s now four goals in our opening two friendlies for Willian, and the Brazilian hopes his impressive form will continue during our upcoming matches in Singapore.

After scoring a hat-trick in last week’s friendly win over Fulham at Cobham, it was Willian who broke the deadlock in last night’s 3-0 victory against Arsenal at the Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing when he curled a brilliant right-footed strike into the bottom corner (image below). 

‘Not bad,’ he responded, when asked to assess his performance. ‘I think I’ve been doing my job. Against Arsenal we played really well from the beginning of the match. We knew the pitch wasn’t good, but it wasn’t good for either team. We tried to create chances and score goals, and we did it well.

‘They left a lot of space in behind and we had many chances. I missed a good one early in the game but then I scored the goal which was nice.

‘We are getting better with every game. We have two more matches to play on the tour but winning these type of matches, against strong opposition, is very good for our confidence.’

The Blues looked sharp from very early on in the game and could have taken the lead within the opening couple of minutes. What made the performance all the more impressive was the fact it was only our second match of pre-season, while the Gunners were in action for the fourth time. 

Willian believes playing friendlies against strong opposition is a big help in terms of ensuring the team is in the best possible condition when the season begins.

‘Playing against top sides is a good challenge and it helps improve our game because we are coming up against very strong opponents, which is a good test for us before the season starts,’ he said. ‘We played well, and won, against Arsenal and hopefully we can continue in this way win against Bayern and Inter.’

Having spent the first part of the tour in China, the Blues will be based in Singapore for the next week, and Willian is looking forward to spending time in a location he has nice memories of.

‘I’ve been there once with the Brazilian national team,’ he recalls. ‘We played against Japan and won the game so now, with Chelsea, I hope I can win there again and, of course, it would be nice to score another goal.’