Arsenal fans have fewer player-specific chants than last season. They liked singing about Cesc Fabregas, of course, and Samir Nasri had a nice song to the tune of Baby Give It Up by KC and the Sunshine Band, which will be revived for tonight's Carling Cup tie with Manchester City -- albeit with somewhat ruder lyrics. Robin van Persie's still a fan favorite and gets a nice chorus of his name, but there's only so many times you can sing "We've only got one Song" before spoiling the joke.

The chant that got the most airtime during Saturday's home draw with Fulham was the simple, bellowed "Theo, Theo." Hardly the most nuanced chant, but that might be appropriate for hardly the most nuanced of players. Theo Walcott, as every English football fan will tell you, is about pace and little else.

Yet Walcott has become a terrific player over the course of 2011. His positioning is more varied, he links brilliantly with van Persie, surely the player of the calendar year, and only David Silva, Nani and Ashley Young have recorded more assists. Not bad for a player frequently criticized for a lack of an end product.

Walcott's always had the pace, but he's learned how to use it better. For the first few minutes against Fulham, he employed his speed to try to get in behind the defense. As soon as van Persie dropped deep between the lines, Walcott was on his way before the first pass had even reached the Dutchman. If Fulham left back John Arne Riise switched off for a second, Walcott was long gone. Had van Persie played the ball right to Walcott rather than left to the offside Andrei Arshavin in the first half, Arsenal wouldn't have had such a difficult afternoon.

But Walcott can do that only so often. There comes a point when the opposition defends so deep that such a ball in behind is impossible -- the angle of the pass is too straight, and too likely to trickle through to the goalkeeper rather than slide into Walcott's path. A couple of years ago, Walcott spent entire games trying to encourage those through balls. It became predictable, Walcott too reliant upon that killer pass. "When I was younger, my teammates would kick it behind the defense and I'd run onto it and score," he told Arsenal Magazine last year. "It's not that easy anymore."

It certainly isn't. Now, Walcott's positioning is varied. Rather than incessantly going in behind (or making the run, stopping when the pass wasn't played immediately and then getting the ball when stationed next to the opposition left back), he drops off more, then speeds past an opponent with the ball. He did that brilliantly against Norwich's Marc Tierney for Robin van Persie's equalizer in Arsenal's previous match.


Alternatively, because opponents are so keen to stand off and deny him space in behind, Walcott gets space for a cross. He's become adept at this skill -- Thomas Vermaelen's headed equalizer against Fulham came from one of his crosses, van Persie had a good headed chance from another, and Aaron Ramsey blazed over the crossbar when he should have hammered the ball into the net. Everything went down Arsenal's right, which reflected well on Walcott, especially because Arsenal didn't have any overlapping runs from right back, with Bacary Sagna injured and Johan Djourou not comfortable motoring forward.

It's taken a while for Walcott to become an all-round attacking threat. Perhaps, for a player frequently derided for his lack of footballing intelligence, he took a while to adjust to Arsene Wenger's methods. Wenger doesn't specifically instruct players, he puts them in environments during training that are intended for players to come to conclusions themselves. It's why he's so keen on playing five-a-side, for example.

"Five-a-side confronts the player with constant decision-making," he told FourFourTwo. "When you receive the ball, you are faced with dozens of options. Your brain acts like a computer: it realises it has been faced with this situation before and tries to come up with the right answer."

Van Persie explains Wenger's approach to correcting attacking moves. "I made a couple of little mistakes in a game. He told me that a top player doesn't do those actions ... it was up to me to find my answers. I was finding my own answers and that's how he helped me big time." Van Persie is a player you can rely upon to find his own conclusions. For Walcott, it's taken longer.

Maybe that's why he had such trouble when given specific tasks by Fabio Capello ahead of last summer's World Cup. "I made a run inside from my position out wide on the right. Suddenly Mr. Capello started screaming at me at the top of his voice," he recalls in his autobiography. "Training stopped and everyone stared at their feet and looked embarrassed. 'Theo,' he was yelling. 'I will kill you if you come inside like that again!'" Yet other players in England's training camp described the instructions as "simple," and to anyone who watched England under Capello in the build-up to 2010, it was obvious that he wanted his right winger to stay wide. Walcott just wasn't used to following orders.


His omission from that tournament spurred him on. "I just wanted to come back and prove people wrong, to make sure it didn't happen again" -- and he's now forcing opponents to alter their tactics to stop him. After Saturday's game, Fulham manager Martin Jol recalled the first half. "Walcott got a one-versus-one three times," he said. "You don't want that, and we tried to correct it." When Walcott got the ball in the second half, Fulham tried to double up against him, often with Dickson Etuhu. Gaps appeared elsewhere.

Walcott's still not perfect. He needs to arrive quicker at the far post when the ball is on the left to improve his goalscoring tally, and he was partly responsible for the goal Arsenal conceded on Saturday, when Riise broke past him.

But there seems a strange reluctance to accept that Walcott has become a fine footballer. A hattrick against Blackpool last season resulted in a Match of the Day montage that evening, demonstrating why he has "no football brain." After terrorizing Ashley Cole in Arsenal's 5-3 win at Stamford Bridge last month, one report read, "Credit where credit is due. Walcott was excellent."

Why so hesitant and forced? "Credit where credit is due" is hardly how you'd praise or congratulate someone if the enthusiasm was genuine. It's not as if the performance was a one-off, either. Walcott's form has been good since he outwitted Cole in their previous meeting last Christmas.

Maybe the World Cup call-up in 2006 was the worst thing that could happened to him, maybe he's a victim of a culture where many are desperate for players to fail. Whatever the reasons for the negativity, Walcott is now a very good footballer, and it's time for him to get the recognition he deserves.


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http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/news/_/id/7293799/theo-walcott-deserves-more-recognition-being-excellent-footballer-michael-cox
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Just a victim of people never changing thier opinion of a player because they cant accept people can improve.......

In England there are still people that think Coloccini, Kompany, Enrique, Lucas and Song among many others are average.....

Walcott is a fine player and has improved greatly over the last year, his crossing and final ball inparticular has improved no end.

I enjoy when players are underrated. They have less pressure on their shoulders and it's lovely when they rip teams apart and opposing fans go, "wait, isn't he supposed to be crap?".

Has definitely improved his crossing and decision making, but I'm still waiting for him to be played up front.

Poor man's Sturridge

Immaculate_Mole wrote:Just a victim of people never changing thier opinion of a player because they cant accept people can improve.......

In England there are still people that think Coloccini, Kompany, Enrique, Lucas and Song among many others are average.....

Walcott is a fine player and has improved greatly over the last year, his crossing and final ball inparticular has improved no end.

this...mole remember i told you this on the chat..people still think jesus navas is a top 5 winger and lucas should sit on liverpools bench...

vivabarca38 wrote:

Immaculate_Mole wrote:Just a victim of people never changing thier opinion of a player because they cant accept people can improve.......

In England there are still people that think Coloccini, Kompany, Enrique, Lucas and Song among many others are average.....

Walcott is a fine player and has improved greatly over the last year, his crossing and final ball inparticular has improved no end.

this...mole remember i told you this on the chat..people still think jesus navas is a top 5 winger and lucas should sit on liverpools bench...

Yep Navas is another of example of people remembering his form of a couple of years ago and hold on to the fact he's still that player when he is'nt.....

A name and nothing more.

english_jewel wrote:Poor man's Sturridge

WTF did Sturridge do to even be compared to Theo.

He is under rated because he was over rated if that makes sense. When he was first bought people expected so much from him in the next few years and most including me thought he would be better than he is today. There has been good improvement this year he just needs to avoid injuries and be consistent.


Also Walcott > Sturridge by far

EarlyPrototype wrote:He is under rated because he was over rated if that makes sense. When he was first bought people expected so much from him in the next few years and most including me thought he would be better than he is today. There has been good improvement this year he just needs to avoid injuries and be consistent.


Also Walcott > Sturridge by far

Exactly, he was so over-hyped that when he failed to deliver people just stopped hyping him at all.

I think he will be respected more when he does great things against great opponants consistently.

Its nothing to do with his quality, its just for everyone to really see how good he is, he needs to do big things time after time to get the regonition.

Bale ripped Maicon and Inter, because of that, everyone knows his quality, everyone talks about him.

Walcott (and others) need a career defining moment or moments and people will start to get it.

When I think of Bale, I think of him owning Maicon. When I think of Walcott, I dont think of one specific moment.

Nothing to do with quality really.

He has raped Cole on numerous occasions.......

Yeah, I know that. I also recall him owning Mascherano against Pool.

But those are not defining moments that everyone remembers.

EVERYONE remembers Bale toying with Maicon ike 4, 5 times in the same game and also scoring a hatrick.

Walcott?

The way he dribbled from our box up until Liverpool's box and set-up Adebayor for the equalizer obviously isn't memorable
Neither is the hattrick for England
Never-mind how he brought Arsenal back from being 2-0 down to Barca (and completely outplayed by them, as well).
Raping Chelsea and Cole twice in a row also seems to mean nothing as well.


He has done enough to be remembered, albeit still being 21.

Thats true iceman but what franchise is saying that people will not remember Walcott's performances against cole in oppose to Bale's performance against Inter

before this last/season, why was theo so over rated ? Because of his hatrick against Croatia. That carried him for 2 seasons despite him being inconsistent as sh1t.

Those type of performance will win u the PFA POTY award LOL ( even if it happens in europe)

Iceman wrote:Walcott?

The way he dribbled from our box up until Liverpool's box and set-up Adebayor for the equalizer obviously isn't memorable
Neither is the hattrick for England
Never-mind how he brought Arsenal back from being 2-0 down to Barca (and completely outplayed by them, as well).
Raping Chelsea and Cole twice in a row also seems to mean nothing as well.


He has done enough to be remembered, albeit still being 21.

Not understanding my point, but whatever.

It's like I was saying about Khedira the other day...

Very talented player, but tends to fall under the radar.
Thus, when teams are looking out for key players to watch, such as Ronaldo, Benzema, Alonso, etc. (or Song, RvP, Arteta, etc. in Walcott's case), they forget or even blatently ignore the threat that is Khedria/Walcott... and BAM, on matchday, said player destroys their unprepared opponent.

Underrated players are actually the best...
They don't need to be noticed to make their contributions

The problem is that he is always identified as a threat by all opponents, but not by pundits or fans. How many times have we seen teams adapt tactics just to stop Walcott? Just last week Norwich altered their tactics during halftime and had one of their midfielders double-up on Walcott, which freed space for our attack.
Barcelona themselves admitted that he was one of the toughest oppositions.

See, he is identified as a thread, the opposing teams are aware of his abilities and effectiveness, but matchday pundits refuse to give him such recognition.

Mind you, as an Arsenal fan I can remember many moments where Walcott was completely vital to, and even sometimes carried the whole team.

Isnt he a Liverpool fan?

Forest Gump needs more lovin!

Crimson wrote:Forest Gump needs more lovin!

Walcott's name from now on.

Haha great name for him

Iceman wrote:Walcott?

The way he dribbled from our box up until Liverpool's box and set-up Adebayor for the equalizer obviously isn't memorable
Neither is the hattrick for England
Never-mind how he brought Arsenal back from being 2-0 down to Barca (and completely outplayed by them, as well).
Raping Chelsea and Cole twice in a row also seems to mean nothing as well.


He has done enough to be remembered, albeit still being 21.

dat run vs pool in the cl

Finally getting the credit he deserves?

Forrest Gump

What's Spearing got to do with this thread?