What in the World Happened to Theo Walcott?

February 23rd, 2010 | by: Matilda |

Remember this? We haven’t seen that Theo Walcott in a while. He’s only made 5 starts in the league this season and has fallen to a large number of injuries. Now he’s been left out of the U-21 England squad, which means two things. The first being that Wenger is happy, because he doesn’t want Walcott in both the U-21 side and the senior side, and obviously he wants his players at the top level. It also means less playing time, which is crucial, especially at this age. Walcott is only 20, he’s still developing his match instincts and nothing can do that except game time. Added to the fact that he’s had so little football this season, he will be nowhere near match sharp for quite a while.

I am a big Theo Walcott fan, he has blistering pace and makes killer runs, but come June he may not be match sharp. There are only 23 men going to the World Cup, which factoring in 3 keepers is basically 1 cover for each position. We can’t afford to bring anyone who isn’t at their best, who will fumble a ball because they’ve been out for the majority of the domestic season. We also can’t bring anyone who gets hurt every other game, meaning Walcott will have to prove he isn’t as delicate as this season indicates. So get that work in Theo, because I want to see you in South Africa.

England Football Team World Cup Blog RSS Feed

http://arsenal.theoffside.com Martin

He’ll get plenty of action in the run-in if he’s healthy, but I think there’s a lot more to it than that. For all his talent and pace, he still doesn’t have much of anything in the way of passing or finishing skills. If he doesn’t put in a couple of brilliant performances in the next couple of months to force Capello’s hand, I don’t think he makes it onto the plane.
rGunner

I am an Arsenal fan and I do not think that Walcott has done enough to be in the First 11 for Arsenal let alone England.

The boy has everything to do in order to convince me that he can be good at this level.
http://www.worldcupblog.org Daryl

I think if Aaron Lennon was fit and playing, then Walcott’s chances of going to South Africa would be slim. But I feel like we need to take at least one of them, to give us some width and pace down that right wing. But as Martin said, there’s still enough of the season still to go that Theo has a chance to re-establish himself. That hat-trick does seem like an awfully long time ago now though.