It’s 4 days rest so you’d think so. Wenger likes to keep form players playing. We need to keep Theo and Alexis fit as their partnership is putting the numbers up for us right now. This form of Theo’s is about him peaking, if he gets injured he’ll take ages to peak again.
1 Like
Michael Owen in the post match analysis of the Basel game with Wrighty and Hargreaves, Michael says (on Walcott) something I always felt about how Walcott offers something completely unique for us with his style. He said something like:
Not all players need to come short, they got Özil and Cazorla for that […] If you just keep running behind all the time people are going to think you’re a bit of a headless chicken. But ask anyone else, ask any defender - they hate that. And you ask any midfielder in your team, they want that.
4 Likes
@AbouCuellar good idea! Look at this moron with the first post in this thread, what an idiot :ozil2:
1 Like
Needs to do it for the whole season to prove any doubters wrong. Any player can have a good start. Good players have good seasons, not starts.
6 Likes
Agreed.
Then if Theo’s form tails off the rest of us have something to point out and laugh at.
2 Likes
29th of August
:theo:
When those of us in the doubting camp react we’re being knee jerkers…you’d swear we’ve done the treble and Theo has walked away with the golden boot the way some are going on.
I hope both those things happen by the way.
3 Likes
Honestly, we’ve had several false dawns like this with Theo, you’d have thought his fans would be a bit more cautious before being so triumphalistic about it lol
3 Likes
I’m reminded of the time a certain tall striker scored a penalty and a certain former poster came on to tell all the doubters “told you so”. 
It’s because of how extreme/over the top the abuse was. It was worse than with Ramsey. Much of the abuse has already been proved wrong by way of him showing some quality in a string of 5 games or so, that’s how extreme it was.
2 Likes
The triumphalism will still look stupid if his form drops off, as it has done before in the past. All I’m saying is that imo it is too early to start crowing about it as if the debate has been settled and you are undeniably right. I bet after the 3-0 against Manchester United last season you and others like a4tt were bragging about how right you were and how Theo was delivering, then the whole season went to absolute shit and he was abject.
If I were you right now I’d be feeling pretty justified for defending him, but I’d stop short of adopting a bragging tone because you could end up looking really stupid if he can’t sustain it.
Anyway, he deserved the criticism. That he was taking his place for granted and was quite lazy has been proven several times over this season. 1. He admits himself that he has completely changed his attitude from this summer onwards, putting in extra sessions on the training ground and trying to be the one working hardest in the gym. These are things he wasn’t doing before. 2. In the past two seasons combined he made 11 tackles, this season he eclipped that total in 5/6 league matches.
I’m sure some of the criticisms was over the top, that’s simply the nature of football fans, in every respect some always take it too far. But by and large Theo deserved the criticism he got, he basically acknowledges this himself by talking about how much he has changed/how his approach has changed etc.
Just to be clear, I’m not willing him to fail so I can throw it back in certain people’s faces. At the moment it looks like I was wrong to write Theo off, I sincerely hope he keeps it up and I’ll happily eat a bit slice of humble pie. I just don’t think we should get ahead of ourselves too soon and think that Theo has arrived and from now on will always play in this manner.
8 Likes
Yeah, It was not just lack of ability that people hated about him.
It was his attitude towards the game & our title challenge.
Post Sanchez’s injury, he should have been our leader especially after scoring a brilliant goal against ManCity; but he vanished.
Efforts were lacking, was cowardly in challenges.
The criticism Theo received, no matter how harsh, was deserved.
3 Likes
I’m still not naive enough to think Walcott will turn in these performances consistently over the next few months. If he does then great, he may finally be answering his long-term critics.
Great performances at the moment though, up to 90 goals for the club now and should be chasing down the 100 Club well before the end of this season hopefully. Can’t argue with him keeping the shirt for the time being. I reckon he’s seen what Iwobi’s been doing and that’s been a large part of his motivation.
1 Like
I’m with @ArseneCuellar again on Theo. He’s an extremely flawed player, but you surround him with the likes of Cazorla, Iwobi, Ozil etc., and really play to his strengths, then you have yourself an incredibly dangerous player. I really had just forgotten what it looked like but it’s the same flawed Walcott.
You look at how different the make up of the team is now compared to what it was when we saw those horrendous Theo performances, and the only thing that hasn’t really changed is Özil is still there. Cazorla wasn’t in midfield, it was often Flamini/Ramsey and then later a combination of Ramsey/Coquelin/Elneny. We were lacking the control and creativity that Cazorla and Xhaka can provide. Then there’s Iwobi who only came into the picture late last season who has improved our combination play in attacking midfield remarkably. On top of that, the move Alexis has made to CF and the different style we are currently playing with (because of the players that are on the pitch) means Walcott is really in his element again enjoying the fruits of our quick passing and fluidity. No doubt that his commitment on defence and confidence is there again which mas made a difference too.
This Alexis/Walcott thing will have a different test against Burnely, I’m interested to see how it goes. Chelsea and Basel both played fairly high and tried to squeeze us, Burnley sit very, very deep so there won’t be the same space behind.
3 Likes
All the abuse he got was totally justified. Been here 10 years, always got his bumper contracts, last season played like a right wimp.
He should be a talisman for the club by now…not a player we hope can turn his form around for fucks sake.
1 Like
Theo has pretty much always produced in his career. If you look at his minutes played he scores or assists about one time every 120 minutes or so. The second half of last season was an anomaly in his career really. Theo did his acl and came back a year later and never played a full 90 minutes. Then he started killing it early last season at CF, a spot where you don’t make many tackles btw. Then the muscle injury, which isn’t surprising considering he hadn’t been playing a lot of football matches for over a year. Then when he came back I assume he was just massively out of shape and he really was terrible the second half of last season. This summer Theo was going bat shit in the gym training. He looked like he was really going to be ready. So in my mind, a guy who’s always produced, is training his ass off in preperation for the season, was going to succeed. That’s just how I saw it. Theo as long as he stays on the pitch and doesn’t get injured, always produces goals and assists, he’s already done it consistently throughout his career. The only thing that’s going to stop him is injury.
2 Likes
glad theo is doing well. if he stays fit, he will easily score 20+ goals. his main issue is fitness and then peaking and lack of confidence.
I don’t really care how “deserved” or not it was. That’s a philosophical argument in the end.
What I’m interested in was how wrong it was. It’s the talk of him being utterly useless and not even a footballer that is funny in retrospect. Especially when some of those same people–yourself, for example–backed cancers like Oxlade Chamberlain or Ramsey, or talked up Joel Campbell like he was something special.
@JakeyBoy as I’ve just said, the criticism of his attitude, meh, I’m not really interested in it. The psychology of a footballer is a bit more complicated than just switch on switch off/effort on effort off, as in Theo was switch off last season and now switch on, but meh, not really too bothered about dissecting his psychology. What I found sad, mainly, was the short memories, and the revisionist histories, people trying to suggest that a player that not long ago at all contributed in a very important/positive way for us was some piece of shit who wouldn’t even get into a Tony Pulis side.
2 Likes
Well he couldn’t get into the England national team and I’d rank them about Pulis side quality.