Walcott and the Unsigned Contract

LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 03: Theo Walcott of Arsenal runs at Dimitrs Siovas of Olympiacos during the UEFA Champions League Group B match between Arsenal FC and Olympiacos FC at Emirates Stadium.

Why does Arsenal Football Club have an extra USD 35 million in the bank, instead of Van Persie in the team photograph? Why do we still have Chamakh in the team photograph, instead of an extra 0 million pounds in the bank, and Chamakh out of the team photograph? Why does Arteta’s hair never move an inch? Answers that we fans might never come to know fully about. However, there is something that we can infer with available information; that Walcott is probably exiting stage left at the end of the season. When I last did a count, there were approximately 145.6 million people in the world, who wanted to sign a GBP 75,000-a-week contract with The Arsenal and “become a legend like Thierry Henry.” I am fairly certain that the majority of them would bite Gazidis’ hand off to get paid that much, and then concentrate really hard on actually trying to become a legend like Thierry Henry. As an aside, with that obscenely generous salary, a football team of Theo Walcotts would be monetarily more valuable than the idyllic island-country of Montserrat. With decent footballing ability, pace to burn, and a lot of money waiting to deposit itself in his bank account, one wonders what Walcott’s problem is.

I like Theo Walcott as a footballer: he’s as fast as the Ebola virus in a mood to kill, and his movement is fairly intelligent like a sleepy me searching for a midnight snack. But one gets the feeling that Theo isn’t quite secure about who he is: a speed demon whose speed of thought cannot keep up with his almost-Olympic pace. He seems to want to play up front (read, go up against two giant center backs), which doesn’t play to his strengths at all. Like how Archie was always after Veronica, who didn’t value him all that much, while pretty Betty pined for him. One’s never satisfied with just a pretty blonde bombshell, eh? A number of Theo’s goals have come when he’s been fed the ball outside of fullback, or between full back and center back. Like this (bad quality, apologies). It was like clockwork: midfielder picks out pass, Theo insults fitness of full back, and squares for center forward or strokes it into the far corner. Job well done (blow smoke off smoking barrel of gun).

Theo Messi.. err, Walcott… is also a victim of heightened expectations. He gets regularly vilified for not having a “football brain”, and for not picking out the right ball every time. There are quite a few players in the Premier League that I strongly suspect don’t have a brain even – they do the most insane stuff and get the club into trouble. Mario Balotelli, anyone? Maybe the Gunners should get off Walcott’s back a bit? Theo’s improved his output over the past three years, but if that’s worth his wage demands is definitely questionable. Just saying, that he’s been taking a fair amount of undeserved criticism over the years, where other players would have been cut come slack. On their end, Gunners badly need to manage their expectations. Would anyone in their right mind expect Usain Bolt to accurately plan his finances while winning gold? However, Theo’s assists last season were much more about Van Persie’s brilliant movement in the box, than Theo’s brain catching up with his feet. We can blame Van Persie for talking up Walcott to this point, where he’s holding the club to ransom, which has placed him in the echelon of players such as Vieira, Fabregas, Van Persie, and A. Cole. This is exalted company indeed – company in which Walcott doesn’t belong on a basis of achievement, leave alone talent.

Arsene Wenger has consistently stated that he’ll play Walcott upfront at some point. He’s recently praised Walcott’s improvement in finishing and his always-good movement off the ball. Let us also not forget that Walcott was also given No. 14, ahem. This must definitely mean that Wenger plans for Walcott as a striker up front, or this is a really elaborate ruse to completely destroy Walcott’s confidence before he signs for another team next season. I personally believe Wenger aimed to convert Walcott into a striker, but hasn’t been impressed with his footballing progress. Walcott’s ability to hold the ball with his back to defenders is still questionable (downright mediocre, if you’re not a fan of Walcott), and this happens to be a required quality of the striker in the Arsenal system – drop deep, hold off defender, pick out pass, link play, rush back into box, and generally cause havoc. Till Walcott sorts out this aspect of his game, it’s hard to see Wenger playing him as a “conventional” Arsenal forward.

Theo is a unique player and there’s no one quite like him in the footballing world. Theo would feel so much better about himself if only he learned to give himself some credit. Instead he wants to be somebody else (Thierry Henry), who was a once-in-a-century player. In fact, by scoring all these important goals (West Ham), he made a very good point that he’s best used on the wing. None of the top sides in Europe play the “big man-small man” two striker system. Opposition center backs now push up against the lone striker, while the full backs try to mark the wide forwards. This works well for you Theo, because Arsenal have players who can find that pass between full back and center back to set you like a rabbit running for its life. Yes, Gervinho has been used up front, but he’s better (slightly) at linking up play and dribbling his way (sometimes) out of trouble. Like I mentioned in an earlier article, for all your nice things, Theo, you don’t have a dribble that would scare Djourou playing at full back.

Allow me to correct you, Theo: you want to be legendary like Thierry. You can do that on the right wing. You can blaze your own trail there, quite literally. Please, don’t try to be Thierry, because you’ll end up costing the footballing world a Theo.