Every player wants to emulate a great, a club legend, and Theo Walcott isn’t any different, with the England international wanting to follow in the footsteps of Arsenal icon Ian Wright.
Since his arrival from Southampton in January 2006, the 26-year-old has been mainly deployed by Arsene Wenger on the right winger because of his pace, but Theo has, in recent times, operated in a more central role – the position he wants to play.
Wright was Arsenal’s all-time leading goal scorer with 185 goals during a seven year spell before Thierry Henry shattered it in 2005, netting 228 times, and Walcott, who has 78 goals to his name to date, revealed he is keen to emulate the former Gunners striker.
Walcott said on Wright:
‘I loved him [along with] everything about his style of football because he always played smiling.
‘He obviously scored so many goals and caused havoc for defenders. He wasn’t the tallest man in the world but the amount of pressure he would put on defenders just scared them.
‘I can learn from the runs he made, the pace he had in his game and his finishing. When he was in the box he didn’t panic.’
Walcott has been often criticised for his lack of quality and composure in front of goal, as well as his inconsistency, but he is determined to match that of what Wright did in the past:
‘That’s something that I have been learning, that when you’re in the box you have a lot more time than you think. He made it look very easy. That’s something that I’m taking out of his game and I’m starting to learn.
‘He’s obviously scored so many goals for the club and they’re all so different as well. He scored all sorts of goals and that’s what you want from a striker, to be able to score any goal.
‘He is one of those who is in the history books and he is definitely a cult hero.’
Walcott will have opportunities to prove to the fans and Wenger that he deserves to play as a centre-forward rather than a winger in the upcoming weeks with Olivier Giroud out of form and Danny Welbeck out injured.
But can the England international be as good as Wright was for the Gunners?
