Is Walcott Good Enough For No. 14?

You shouldn’t be surprised if faced with a question similar to the one above i.e. Where is our No. 14!? Answers may range from, ‘We had Thierry Henry playing there, aye (!?)‘ to ‘It was this real fast guy‘ & so on. You shouldn’t also be surprised if few fail to remember this guy completely. But then pardoning them would be much easier than forgetting the promise one English teenager had shown signs of, months before WC ’06. It’s that time of the year again, & we @11G rewind time to get up-close with Theo Walcott. Our No. 14 btw..

Aged 20, Theo Walcott, the current Arsenal No. 14, has already seen more twists & turns in his rather nascent career than most see in their lifetimes. After all, not many kids are possessed with pace as raw as his. Not many are hand-picked by one of England’s premier club’s aged merely 16 (which made him the costliest teenager ever is noteworthy here). Not many get a free trip to football’s biggest draw, the World Cup i.e., that too as a player, without even making a senior debut with his club. Not many are Theo Walcott anyways. Welcome to his life, a life lived in the fast lane.

He has been the protagonist in each of the aforementioned situations. History will tell you that he didn’t get a single minute of playing time in Germany with the English side, but what he gained on experienced can’t be denied either. With expectations as huge as a monster-ball, he eventually made his bow with the Gunners in the season that followed. Still a naive teenager, he showed glimpses of sheer brilliance every now and then & continued to hone his skills under the able tutelage of Professor Wenger. ‘That’ goal against Chelsea in the Carling Cup final (his first for Arsenal) or ‘that’ run against Liverpool in the Champion’s League quarters (a 80-yard surge like no other), the faithful had their hands full times over. Whilst Stuart Pierce & Sven Goran kept assigning him different roles with the national side (U-21 or the senior side), his involvement as a full-time member was far from proven. All that changed during the September of ’08. Against Croatia, in Zagreb, he bagged a hat-trick, no less, & put to rest all the skeptics doing rounds. His pace, strength & finish had the Croats in a state of delusion. The ‘boy-wonder‘ had arrived. He finished the season with Arsenal scoring 7 goals, & more importantly looking a menace every time he came on. Everything seemed in place for the kid from St. Mary’s (read: Southampton). He re-joined the national side for the U-19 Euro’s during the off-season, much to the angst of Arsene, & risked picking an injury ahead of the new season. Thankfully he returned safe but that was that. A fresh season began soon after, but the decline of Theo, it seems, had already began somewhere in the interim.

Season 2009-10 has been a disaster even by his standards. Knee, shoulder and ­hamstring injuries have ­restricted Walcott to just six starts for Arsenal this season. Arsenal switching to a winger-unfriendly 4-3-3 has also contributed to his supposed wilderness on the pitch. He seems unsure whether to attack or to recline back & help out the full-backs as they overlap him. Wenger, meanwhile, has been adamant in his backing the young prodigy, & maintains that he will  get back to his best once he out-do’s his injuries. Theo himself recently spoke of his frustration at having picked minor niggles all season, something he felt was very unlike him, & reiterated Arsene’s faith by echoing his thoughts.

England have a healthy mix of RW/RM’s & Fabio Capello will have his job cut out in choosing from David Beckham, Aaron Lennon, Shaun Wright Phillips, Theo Walcott, amongst others. With competition as high as this, Theo must be praying to have seen the last of the treatment season, for this season at least. Else he might go the Michael Owen-way & fade out of public memory sooner than later. Let’s not forget, Owen had a fairly successful career with the Three Lions. Theo has barely begun & has a long distance to cover.

Pace is something he relates to like fish to water. Time, like his runs down the flanks, too, is running equally fast. For the first time under public glare & scrutiny, he must now rise up to the occasion & shut his detractors once and for all. He must not forget that he gets paid to represent England at football tourneys & not just run & run to try and make the English sprint squad for the London Olympics 2012! We have had enough of ‘the next superstar‘, ‘talented but needs time‘, ‘his time will come’, rhetoric. It’s about time Theo Walcott out-paced the other contenders & booked his place on the flight to South Africa. And that, only after guiding the Gunners to silverware before the season bids adieu. Oh, did I just go over-board with my optimism here or what!?

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Guess Whoz Back!? It's Our SOUL!! Ole..

Circa 2006. Arsenal 2-0 down at the break. One certain Sol Campbell was to blame for the looming defeat at the hands of West Ham. As a result, Wenger took him off and with it came supposed curtains on one of the more decorated central defenders in recent time.

Cut to 2010. Arsenal 2-0 up at the break. Against who? You guessed it, West Ham! And guess who was taken off at HT this time around? You got it, the good’ol Sol Campbell. Only this time it marked his second homecoming.

11Gunners celebrates his journey back into the Arsenal dressing room..

Controversy and Campbell don’t just have ‘C’ in common, they go hand-in-hand if I may. Although rough and brawny by looks, Sol happens to be one of the most soft-cored guys on the football circuit, but his habits poked otherwise. Most notably his move from Tottenham to Arsenal in ’01, which made him the ire of many a brunt. His spell at Highbury was a throughly successful one, coupled with 2 League triumph’s and three FA Cup’s. An ‘Invincible‘ that he was, his contribution to the national side was no less immense. He pulled the ‘Three Lions’ jersey in no less than 6 consecutive Fifa tourneys, and was named in the ‘All-Star XI’ 2 times. And ofcourse his goal in the Champion’s League final against Barcelona can not be forgotten by any Gooner, ever. But why are we looking back at Sol’s career? After all 2006 was not when it culminated, right!?

Departure from Arsenal led him to Portsmouth, and against all odds, the winner that he is, he ended up winning the FA Cup yet again. Now that puts him ahead of almost every member of the current Arsenal line-up, as far as tasting success last, is concerned! And if you thought he was done with the ‘I-shall-surprise-you-again‘ bit, you were rightly wrong. Under the disabled tutelage of Sven G Eriksson, he made a move to Notts County, way down in League 2. Money could be the prime motive behind a move as audacious as this, and for most parts it was. £40,000 a week was what he raked down there, a steep £10,000 less than what he made at Pompey, yet more than the combined worth of his team-mates at Nott’s, not bad for a disgrunted 35 year old! But money is not what drives winners, and Sol proved this by backing out from the ambitious project in hand, and instead knocking on Wenger’s door to help his cause. And thus began another journey, only this time he had nothing to lose, and all to prove. And boy, does he love being challanged or what!?

Wenger, like he did with Beckham last season, took him over and helped him get back to shape with his team of unbridled physios et al. 2-3 months of ‘do-it-all kinda’ grinds and voila, Sol was back to his could-be best. And then came the moment no one could possibly foresee. For the first time ever, Arsene offered one of his ex-recruits, a fresh contract, and also for the very first time, he went for a over-35 year old. Rumours were doing rounds that it would be Vieira, if anyone, who shall be brought in to provide some experience right through the spine of the team, but it was not to be. Whilst ‘the Citizens’ procured the services of Patrick, ‘the Gunners’ prized back one of their finest for £20,000 a week, performance-based contract. Skeptics are out and firing all cylinders with their views on this ‘Transfer-of-the-Mid-Season-so-far‘, but take word, its worth the penny.

Wenger bought him for free from the Spuds, sold him for the same to the Pompey, and re-bought him for again nothing from Notts County. How shrewd is that!? Apart from his disastrous eye-opener in League 2, way back in September, he has been a success elsewhere, and no point he won’t be now. Not only did Wenger save on his war-chest by getting him for free, in him, he also got someone who knows how to finish seasons off (on the winning side i.e.). Gallas & Vermaelen apart, our backline is as slim as slime is not. Senderos, being the sulk that he is, wants to move out of N5 with the first suitor that comes along. Silvestre, even in his prime with United, was a liability. And Djourou, well, let’s just say, he is still injured. Also Song is away for the Africal Nation’s Cup. So not only were our options bleak, but also blunt. Rubbish, to keep it short. Agreed, Sol can’t fill in for every League game at peril, but what he will provide is, cover during the Cup games, and if the need be, otherwise as well. Let’s not be fooled here thinking Wenger has signed him for emotional reasons, because that he simply can’t. When it comes to transfers, Arsene is as ruthless as you get. We saw that with likes of Vieira, Pires, Ljungberg, etc. But at the same time, he has an uncanny knack of picking out players and extending their careers by several notches. Ask Keown, Seaman, Dixon, Bergkamp. Having seen him day-in & day-out, for over 3 months now, I am sure Wenger was assured that Sol’s presence will indeed be a helpful one in our case and cause. And we don’t doubt our Professor, do we!? We trust him, right!?

And if the above was not testimony enough, just hold your guns for a few. Sol shall surprise us all over again. Keep the faith Gooners..

Second Homecoming..