Arsenal winger Theo Walcott recently revealed that he would be ‘rubbish’ without his pace – make what you will of this.
The 22-year-old England international is one of the fastest players in the Premier League and believes that his pace is the biggest part of his game.
In an interview on Soccer AM this weekend, Walcott said:
‘I’d be rubbish! It’s about touch as well, but pace in the Premier League is massive. I’m fairly quick. I’d be up there. There’s a lot of pacey players in the Premier League but I’d be right up there definitely.’
I’m guessing a lot of Arsenal fans reading this will agree with Walcott’s confessions, as the Englishman’s decision making and final ball needs to radically improve in order for him to become a much better player…his pace is frightening though!
Do you agree with Walcott’s latest statement?
Give us your thoughts
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Exactly right from Theo about beimg rubbish as ma
tch after match proves but even his quick pace doesn,t compensate for a rubbish first touch and
inability to engage brain and feet simultaneously
while trying yet more stepovers?
so what fabregas would be rubbish without his vision bergkamp would zave been rubbish without hes tech.ique only zidane was a complete player
theo is only using the talent he’s got. that’s y he got one of the top ten goals in the Champions league.
Look we all know theo is not being played to his strengths. He’s not a good winger at all. He can’t cross well, he can’t run at players and get past them, he very often makes the wrong decision on the final ball. He is very often useless for an entire match when we don’t play down the right because he’s told to hug the touchline so we can use him to spread out the play but that doesn’t happen.
Theo is a striker, just like Bendtner is a target man that is wasted in the position he’s being played.
Shove theo in the centre, standing at the shoulder of the centre backs and you give the opposition a massive problem. There is no defender in the league that can match his pace, so you’d force them to stick tight to him forcing fouls and cards. You’d also force them to defend deep to counter him therefore taking the two centre backs completely out of any kind of attacking play because even a clearance can be chased by him and turned into a goal.
This would also negate his decision making problem, chase ball, run, take shot. No decisions required at all.
We have a 25+ goals a season striker in Walcott, he is capable of taking a very good shot, he only messes up when forced to think, let him play there every match and eventually it will become instinct for him like it did Henry. But play him in that position and we literally only have to the get the ball into the space between the keeper and the last defender and Walcott will do the rest, we’d actually be an effective counter attacking team like we used to without taking 40 passes in the midfield and letting the opposition reset. We could literally aim every clearance into that space so even in attack our opposition would have to be defensive minded or get punished.
Totally agree with you mate.
I am bewildered, why Wenger doesn’t play him up center? Initially I thought it’s part of Walcott’s education to play on the wings. But surely it’s time know to give him a chance to play in the centre! RvP can well play on the wing like he used to do for Holland!
Wenger’s ways are mysterious to me. Personally I think he has lost it since past 3-4 years. He waited our best players (Fab and Nasri) to leave before he signed up some defenders. Think what the team could’ve achieved if he had signed some proper defenders and a goal keeper when Fab was still around! Hell, he refused to get a backup for the injured Flamini and the mis-firing Adebayor in Jan 2008 when we were 10 points clear of Man United at the top of the table and had a clear shot at the title! And last year, Chelsea and Man Utd kept handing us the title again and again, but we refused to take it with our shaky defence and Goalkeeping problem and a crocked RvP upfront.
Sadly, he finally spent money in a year when Man City and Man Utd look ominous, and Chelsea and Liverpool look great too. I fear we’ll be fighting for a Europa cup place with Tottenham this year.
Wenger has a let the club down with his stubbornness.
With Chamberlain and Miyaichi ready to nick his place in the team, he ought to shut up and not remind us about his short comings. The boy’s place is seriously under threat. Walcott is no use in the middle unlike Chamberlain, and Chamberlain prefers the right flank too. He’s better than what Walcott was at his age – and he could by January prove to be better than what Walcott is now if he settles in quick – plus he’s almost as fast. Miyaichi is technically way better, and though a touch slower, his final ball and his step overs are going to make his contribution more beneficial to the team than Walcott’s sprint races down the the flank.
The left wing is well covered with Gervinho, Santos and Gibbs all attacking better than what Walcott does on the right.
The one question I always think of with Theo is why has not improved with the weaker aspects of his game.
Most Arsenal fans know his final ball is shocking and this not improved since he joined us. If you have a good understanding of the game this should come naturally but it would improve if you practise, practise, practise.
As a club we dont seem to identify weak areas of our game and work on them. I could name afew others like our set piece organsation, Sagna(terrfic defender) but his crossing going forward is dreadful no point on overlapping if you are hitting row Z all the time, Gibbs positioning in defence has always been suspect has be was a winger peviously I cant see an imrpovement. Arshivan his workrate and stamina are disgracefully for a pro footballer have Arsenal seek to imrpove this I would have the pr**k cross country training to make him tougher and able to handle two teams in a week!!!
I thought this is why a player trains every day???
and explains why the fans getting so annoyed with some players
Play him down the centre!
I disagree with most of you and even theo. His ball control has developed immensely since his arrival against Bulgaria I saw him dribble past 3 players in quick succession and yesterday he did a 360 to turn out of trouble. He could NEVER have previously attempted let alone displayed these levels of ball manipulation and pulled them off. He is definitely improving he is only 22 and he is still probably the quickest player over 40 yards in the prem. His finishing has improved and whilst his crossing isn’t at the level of maybe fabregas it is better than a lot of our players. He does know when to cut it back along the ground or when to fizz it across the goal. My bigger worry comes with him finding this undeniably better form with such a short term left on his contract. Could he be playing for a move???
its easy to always find bad points in players but maybe we should look at the other side of things, players are comfortable playing in their natural position, sometimes players can adapt to other positions, players like henry etc but not every player can.
if wenger keeps on persisting then you get players that are not happy, they dont try hard enough and they just dont feel comfortable, this is what happens by continiously playing players out of their position.
walcott is a pacey finisher and he should be played through the middle up front with rvp or arshavin behind him, its his best position and its where he will cause the most damage to other teams, i hope wenger realises this.
Even with his pace he is rubbish. Even if he plays in the centre he’d be rubbish. All great strikers are by nature responsible men (to themselves first and then to their team). Look at Villa, Drogba, Rooney etc.
Walcott does not have that one essential personality trait.
And inculcating responsibility is the one thing that ferguson and mourinho do better than wenger. He was fortunate to get a team in which everyone felt responsible when he came. But every player he has ever bought (those who never interacted with the invincibles) have been lacking in responsibility.
Ferguson instils reponsibility towards team and reponsibility for your own development in a player. So does Mourinho – look at Benzema. Think how wenger’d have handled Benzema. Mourinho made him reponsible for tracking back as well as scoring goals. See the results.
Look at the yong players ferguson signs and you’ll see the difference
hes our leading goal scorer this season so far with 3 goals, it would have been 4 yesterday but for good goal keeping and great defending, if walcott is rubbish as you say then i wonder what you think about the rest of our forwards ???????.
Walcott is rubish, atleast he is not good enough to play at an aparent top 4 club, he has bags of pace but has no idea how to use it, when he has the ball he has no idea what to do with it, he crosses when he should pass and passes when he should cross.
I dont see a future for him at Arsenal whilst Arsene keeps playing 1 up top, Theo needs to play in a 4-4-2 formation, play the right ball to him and if he beats the offside trap no1 will catch him, he’s finishing is actually pretty good….