Arsene Wenger says he’s glad to have Theo Walcott back in the Arsenal first team fold for the first time in over two months.
The England winger, who hasn’t featured since scoring his first goal of the season in the away win against Marseille back in September, will likely start on the bench when former club Southampton visit the Emirates on Saturday having fully overcome an abdominal problem which required surgery.
Speaking to Arsenal Player, the boss admitted that Walcott’s pace and ability to burst behind opposition defenders is something he’s happy to have at his disposal again.
“He is one of the players who goes behind [the defence] without the ball. Strikers who get behind the defenders is a very important quality and Theo [Walcott] has that quality.
“Of course you miss a player like Theo Walcott. Theo had a good start to the season, he scored goals, he provided chances and had assists. He can always give you a different option in the game and that is of course vital.
“You always want to have a perfect balance [in attack]. If you look at our results our balance was not too bad, but Theo has different qualities to other players and I am very pleased that he’s back.”
After quite a lengthy stint out Walcott should be chomping at the bit. He’s a long way behind his goal scoring tally for this time last year, he’s got Melvin Orwell’s ‘Mesmertrons‘ awaiting him and having missed England’s last four games could do with a stringing together a few decent performances for Arsenal to ensure he doesn’t miss out on another major international tournament.
Welcome back Theo. In other fitness news, the boss confirmed that Lukas Podolski was still three weeks away from fitness while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Yaya Sanogo won’t feature until the New Year.
“Podolski is not too far away, I would say three weeks. He is doing fitness training on the pitch. He starts to do some ball work too, he still needs two or three weeks before we see him on the pitch for Arsenal.
“Chamberlain is at least one month, Sanogo is January too, Diaby will be March.”
There’s also a chance Tomas Rosicky won’t feature on Saturday with the boss revealing the Czech international is still overcoming the effects of flu.
“Tomas was ill, he had one or two [normal] training days, he could be in the squad as well on Saturday. We have a final test on Friday.”
Theo is back! Now bring on the through balls!
Yaya the new Diaby Sanogo.
I was actually hoping we would get to see some glimpses of his talent atleast. But so far nothing. Not even a reserve game,
how relevant
LOUD NOISES!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdWAcK6Eh8
Welcome our Usain Bolt + Henry reloaded….lets take teams to the cleaners!
PACE just walked into the building. Be very afraid!!!!!!
Welcome back TW14
good news from the treatment room! whatever next?
theo to come off the bench and bag our fouth on saturday. lovely
@last our forward line we start banging in more goals.Giroud can afford to start frm d bench in some games now I also can’t wait for Poldoski return
So that we can play TGSTEL from the start.
How about NO?
Poldi can play up front when he comes back..
I’ve never understood why Podolski hasn’t started more from the middle though I think to see the best of him upfront – like with Theo – we’d need a traditional front two rather than how we play at the moment.
Still, great to see Theo coming back and the rest.
I’m pretty excited about this, been waiting for Theo to get back in the team, finally a real winger to make those needed runs!
I am remembering how many chances Ozil created for our speedy lad before his injury.
Though we’ve looked good, lately we’ve reverted back to some of the fairly impotent tippy tappy stuff of year. This will sound like a very underhanded compliment, but Theo’s greatest asset is that he’s incapable of playing that way. Having something more direct and less technical on the field will give us a better balanced attack (I hope Gnabry starts, with Theo coming on to change things in the 2nd half)- Finally options!
You surely must be joking in the first sentence.
Im glad hes back now the spuds and the townsend wankfest is over ..Welcome back Theo
let them wank over townsend…it only gives him more confidence to shoot into the crowd more frequently…
That’s what I used to think about Bale…until he started smacking them into the top corner, the chances of lightning striking twice is negligible though, right?
You would think (hope) so, 1 deflection and 1 good goal have led to a massive over reaction, think what they would be saying if he was one of ours
Just saw this on Arsenal’s Twitter account. Brilliant news! Now let’s scare some defenders!
Seriously, what did Poldi do to his harmstring?!
Apparently it’s the worst hamstring pull the Arsenal trainer has ever seen. Can’t remember where I read that, but I saw it more than once a few weeks ago.
goal.com
…and I saw updates for Diaby!
Diaby only needs one update….here goes.
DIABY IS HIMSELF.
I must admit, I’ve rather written him off now. When I see an ‘update’ on him, I fear that I’m prone to ignore it. This should in no way be construed as a criticism of the poor chap; it’s not his fault that he’s tragically injury prone, but I have more than a niggling suspicion his career as a professional footballer is pretty much over. I’d love to be proven wrong, though.
I agree & it’s a real shame as he showed real promise at times. If he didn’t have such bad luck you’d say he had no luck at all.
“Theo had a good start to the season, he scored goals”
Actually he has one goal, lol.
Can’t wait to see Ozil and Cazorla feed through balls to Walcott. Ozil + Walcott looks like a really scary attack. Things will only get better from here. COYG.
Ozil + walcott = Ozil + Ronaldo
Let the goal festival begin.
One thing i like about theo.. No matter how invisible he seems in a game he definately gets involve in the goals! Then when he is visible in games he becomes a joy to watch constantly making something out of nothing. We all have our favourite players in the team and theo is mine followed closely by “only one Aaron”
ok I am happy Walcott is back, and I am certain he will help our attack immensely, but let’s not go comparing him to the best player in the world.
No-one compared him to Ramsey.
I think it was a comparison to the kind of returns Madrid got and it’s hardly unreasonable to think it’ll be an accurate one.
Poor Diaby
Look at that handshake… Dayum son
Won’t it be wise for diaby to retire before he gets a permanent damage
Hasn’t he already got permanent damage?
You and me both, boss.
Ox, Podolski and Sanogo out until January / Xmas. Need to sign a forward in January and get rid of TGSTEL.
If we get Pato for less than 15mil, we’re sorted!
I hope it’s the good version of Walcott, the one who scares defences and takes his chances. Not the one who who runs into people and misses one on ones.
Did he really have to say 3 weeks for Podolski. See him sometime next year then. Great having Theo back think we might see the best of Ozil now!
@progman07 Wenger doesn’t always give you “complete truth” lol.
All this handshake ting bwoy wenger missed theo welcome back theo a.w u know the q.
???
We need him.
We need a bit of speed/directness out wide to match the current craft and guile.
We will also need Jack to drive from midfield (and possibly Rosicky…dare I mention Diaby). Arteta and Flamini together is a bit too much for most games. Jack may not be playing at his best bbut his vertical movement for us is absolutely crucial.
Carzola+Giroud+Theo
Ramsey+Ozil
Gibbs+Kolcieny+Martesecker+Sagna
Sczezeny
So confident, we only need 10 players?
He’s obviously assuming Flamini’s been sent off.
It’s CAZORLA, FUCKING CAZORLA.
Actually it’s Cazorla, Santi Cazorla.
@ Arse in my DNA;
What did you do to Arteta?!?
Poor Diaby only if he can just leave football
Dude only ten players in that line up lol I know the boy are playing well etc but I think we need our eleventh man
Cazorla *****giroud*****walcott. *****************Ozil******************************Ramsey ********wilshere/arteta**. Gibbs *koscielny***usual per usual*sagna. Keeper
A keyboard has an enter key for a reason.
Mybad…. Surely Arteta as d DM
Caption for photo above:
Theo: “Check it Arsene dawg, tracky tops from Olivier just like his space suit piece”
Arsene : “damn straight theo, top top quality! Hey…. did you just drop one?… damn that stinks boy”
Seriously
Diaby back in March? What year Arsene?
yeah welcome theo, now GIROUD will see a lot of goal and bangs a lot of goals…cos the present of theo GIROUD is unstoppable
Oh… Diaby…
I hope he is not inconsistent in patches
Ozil + Theo = Stillness & Speed