Michael O'Donnell
I'd like to begin by stating that I believe the vast majority of honest Arsenal fans would not be too disappointed if Theo Walcott exited the club before the Transfer Deadline window closes at 11pm this evening, although the signs are that he is going nowhere. It has often been said that if you take away Walcott's pace then he has nothing. The words inept, inadequate, average, frustrating, rubbish, headless-chicken etc etc have all been used to describe Walcott from he joined us over 6 long years ago.
We as fans have been super patient as no fan has ever been before. "He's still young...still learning...still growing..." but I recall for want of a better example, Ryan Giggs bursting onto the scene scoring a sensational solo (slalom-esque) effort against Tottenham at WHL as a 17 year old; and Michael Owen as a 16 year old scoring against Wimbledon with both players rubberstamping the phrase 'If you’re good enough you’re old enough'. This has never been the case with Walcott. The harsh reality is bar a box to box run at Anfield and a similar run against Barcelona at the Nou Camp, both in the Champions League, overall he's less excited us, more infuriatingly angered us with great regularity.
Adept at running down blind alleys, bundling the ball out of play with a poor first touch or choosing the wrong option out of two choices, he's rarely turned it on in an Arsenal shirt. So when I hear this morning that Walcott has turned down an offer of £75k per year basic for five years to play for Arsenal I merely see this as a no-brainer.
I wish Arsenal would sell him now, take the profit; let him join his 'boyhood heroes" at Merseyside or go to Man City with the rest of the rejects for an undeserved £100-150k per week salary. I don’t care. I wish we could just get him out now if he doesn’t want to be here because a) we have plenty of cover in his position such as the Ox, Arshavin, Gervinho, Cazorla (if needs be) or b) we can bring in someone of better quality. If he'd opted for City then perhaps we could have taken Dzeko or Richards or anyone else they might want off their wage bill as part of a deal? If he opted for Liverpool then straight cash could have been used to buy what we really needed - a CDM and a keeper.
Some might argue in terms of losing a marketable England international. Well, we have two better marketable internationals, in my opinion, in the form of Ox and Jack - just let him go if what's been written is accurate. Of course, once again regardless of what is said, it all boils down to money. All I know is someone of his 'quality' has no right to make the demands that he's making. However if its true that we offered RVP £150k per week to stay and now we're ONLY offering Walcott £75k per week then perhaps AW, IG et al are merely loading the gun and letting the player fire the bullet.
