The media’s reaction to Walcott’s omission from the England World Cup squad seems to have come as a bit of a shock to the majority of football pundits on Fleet Street. They should have spoken to most Gooners, who could have told them that he simply is currently not at international level, with many believing him to not even be at Premiership level. He is lightweight and has a knack of always choosing the wrong option.

His performances last season in an Arsenal shirt for me were summed up in one incident at the Nou Camp. He was clean through on goal, and instead of going for it, he chickened out and scuffed a dreadful pass slightly behind Bendtner, who somehow managed to score at the second time of asking. Although at the time I was happy Arsenal had scored, I was also cursing Walcott for his pathetic contribution to that goal. If you recall only approx one minute later Diaby had a wonderful opportunity to play Walcott in again with only the goalkeeper to beat, but he chose to pass to Bendtner and the move broke down.

At the time everybody said that had Diaby passed to Walcott we could have been two up, which would have made the game very interesting. No one thought that perhaps Diaby, having just witnessed Walcott bottling a golden oppurtunity by passing the ball dreadfully to Bendtner, (despite us eventually scoring) felt compelled not to pass to him, as he knew he would simply bottle it again anyway, and hence chose the wrong pass. The rest as they say is history.

I have defended Walcott in the past to many of my fellow Gooner friends, but this season have come to the same conclusion that they had, which is that he has not progressed one bit since his arrival back in 2006. How this has come about is a bit of a mystery, as although I have been critical of Wenger’s overall current policy it can’t be denied that the majority of youngsters under his charge have all improved from the various rough diamonds he has assembled, with the exception of Walcott, who to me is no different a player from the one who arrived from Southampton four years ago.

Although England’s ultimate success or failure does not interest me anywhere near as much as to what happens with Arsenal, I am really pleased that Capello omitted Walcott as hopefully the boy will now start soul searching as to why he was dumped at the eleventh hour, and put right his current failings, and turn into a man who finally fulfills his promise when signed by Arsenal four years ago. However I feel rightly or wrongly that of all people Chris Waddle summed it up perfectly when he said “the lad does not possess a football brain”, and hence may never develop and will always be remembered as someone with lightning pace, but no end product.