Arsenal: Arsene Wenger Right About Theo Walcott

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has made the rather obvious claim that Theo Walcott can be a ‘positive surprise’ for England. Well, what else could he be?

With the Euros fast approaching, Arsenal players have been hit with quite the gut-wrencher, as both Danny Welbeck and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be out injured and unable to compete in this most special of competitions.

That leaves just Jack Wilshere and Theo Walcott as potential candidates to make the English national team. Wilshere seems obvious, as Roy Hodgson has been quite outspoken in support of the Arsenal midfielder, but Theo Walcott has less support.

And for good reason. Walcott had a disaster of a season. And by disaster, I mean exactly what Arsenal didn’t want to see happen. Walcott was completely irrelevant and ended up being more of a liability than a threat. He was offside more times than not, proving that he was completely out of sync with his team mates and he failed to make any semblance of a threat.

All in all, Walcott had about a month of relevancy in a season that lasts a bit longer than that.

As such, if Walcott were not to get the call to the English national side, Hodgson could be forgiven. The speedy winger hasn’t proven to have much more than his speed in the decade he’s been at Arsenal and his stagnating value has started to plummet.

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However, Arsene Wenger is of the opinion that Walcott can be a ‘positive surprise’ if chosen by Hodgson.

Obviously. Because there is nothing else Walcott could be. He couldn’t be a let down, as he has far surpassed that level of play. In fact, I actually like this school of thought with Walcott and commend Wenger for taking this approach. It’s like when you hit rock bottom. What do they say? There’s nowhere to go but up.

This makes me much more optimistic to watch Walcott then when I actually had expectations for him. Anything he does will be an upgrade over we’re used to.

On a more serious note, Wenger went on to say that Walcott will be here next year, and that perturbed me. I’m trying to think of some way I could have misinterpreted that, but any such way eludes me. Perhaps I can believe that the entire interview was not quoted and that it was taken out of context.

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Even that seems like a stretch though. Only time will tell.

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