Arsene Wenger says he’s sure Theo Walcott will be an effective attacking component for Arsenal this season, after the England international got a goal and an assist in the 3-2 win over Man City on Sunday.
After Walcott said he no longer wanted to be a striker, the Arsenal manager contradicted him and said he wouldn’t play him on the right hand side due to his defensive deficiencies.
So, he then brought him on on the right hand side against the Premier League rivals and was rewarded when Walcott set up Alex Iwobi for an equaliser then put the Gunners ahead after a slick interchange with Alexis Sanchez (see the goals here).
Speaking after the game, Wenger said, “I’ve said many times that we will get a strong season from Theo Walcott because he got hit hard and I saw how he responded.”
“He went through a very tough time not being at the Euros with England, and I observed him, saw how he responded and I am convinced that he will have a great season.”
Whether the 27 year old’s effectiveness from the right today will confuse matters further remains to be seen, but with no striking additions likely before the Premier League opener against Liverpool on Sunday, the fact that he’s made a good contribution against City is a positive.
Until such time as we bring back TGSTEL on deadline day, anyway.
Yo
MTV raps?
What’s the haps on the craps?
Shake ’em up! Shake ’em up! Shake ’em up! Shake ’em!
I also think I’m going to win the lottery every time I buy a ticket….
Yep..
Still waiting..
Loving the optimism arsene.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Arsene is the best wind up merchant ever
There goes the last hope of signing a striker. Let’s hope he’s finally proved right about Walcott, and that Akpom keeps up his form to score 30 goals in the league.
It does look more and more as if we will only sign a striker if someone wraps a present and leave it at our doorstep. Wenger tried to sign vardy before the euros, looks like he is convinced after the euros that Theo would respond well to being dropped….
Problem is, don’t see where the present can come from…both our feeder clubs Madrid and barca are settled up front! May be its bayern’s turn to turn feeder this year!
Lewa incoming 😉
No striker. Just wenger trying to convince us gullible fans that Walcot on the showing of yesterday has suddenly come good and will win us the league.
Absolutely sick of this bollox and the total disregard for the fans.another wasted season looms with an outstanding midfield inept forward line and a injury hit defence.
To be honest, I am totally ignoring Arsene at the minute. I think he’s just talking absolute bollocks to fuck with us all before he spends money and gets the players needed in. And I love it currently, everyone is going mad!
On the subject of players, Mustafi, Williams and a striker/Mahrez please boss!
“On the subject of players, Mustafi, Williams and a striker/Mahrez please boss!”
Pass me the joint, bro.
Yep!…and “pass the dutche on the right hand side”, if you don’t mind
put me on suicide watch
Cool, where though?
The Emirates is going to be nothing short of toxic on Sunday isn’t it? 🙁
why is right. if we win then who gives a damn.
If we win, and that’s completely not easy. When the game is still 0-0 and we’re being frustrated and our attack ends up with Walcott losing the ball now and then, or a stray pass from Ramsey here and there i am pretty sure things would get quite ugly.
Ain’t this the truth. Sickens me that we’ll be busy acting like babies while West Ham try their best to drum up a decent atmosphere at the Olympic Stadium, intimidating the other team. We’ll play into Liverpool’s hands by fucking the team up!
I’m afraid the manager and the board are already responsible for fucking the team up. Us fans have done our bit – supporting our beloved club and putting money in the bank buying tickets and merchandise. As usual, management haven’t delivered.
Complete rubbish. Arsenal fans are not known for their supportive presence. Leicester proved that football is more than buying the hottest players around. Man united/chelsea and city proved the same last season. Acting entitled and being pissed off during the off season is a bit over the top. There is a reason we do better as a team away from home. Our away fans deserve alot of credit. The players dont feel the negative pressure from our collective lack of support. I find our home fanbase give off an entitled and toxic atmosphere that you can even feel from watching… Read more »
Also, wonder if anyone remembers the tricky left-back Masuaku from Monaco. Signed with West ham. He’s gonna be a solid player. You heard it here first.
He may not be what we wanted, but it’s what we’ve got so let’s get behind Walcott and the rest of the team and who knows, they might surprise us!
We did that last season and it didn’t work out. We need a striker. Today’s performance doesn’t change that
You’re right, but that doesn’t change the fact that Walcott is our only fit striker going into the season. It won’t do any harm (and may even do some good) if we give him our vocal support (even if we air our true feelings here). It’s not his fault he’s still at the club and still one of our few options up front. This is all on Wenger and the club.
Give this man a cookie!
Were you there? I can assure you we didn’t. I did, some others did, but mostly, we didn’t.
We will need him to fire. Unless we bring in a ready made striker (like errr… Ibrahimovich), we may need to transition a Draxler or even an Icardi. Therefore a lot still rest on Giroud’s shoulders. Regardless where he plays, we need goals. We couod theoretically play a system where all 3 front men share space up top in turns. Campbell, Alexis, Walcott (or Iwobi, Ox and Gnabry too) can all interchange. What we must be careful of is learning to play our game to tailor to strength and weakness of such a team. High balls from the back (like… Read more »
Flamini is free. I’m sure he can do a job at CF
That volley against Sp*rs!
I sincerely hope he doesn’t have a great season – because that will mean some shite-cunts like West Ham will probably have a good season – as that is where he should be playing!!
Yeah and I was convinced we’d address key issues before the season starts. We can all be very wrong.
Why were you convinced? When has this ever happened in the last ten years? Why do fans always forget this every single year? Wenger is a lucky man!
Well, all we have to do is support both men.
C’mon Arsenal!!!
So, I guess all Wenger can do at this point is talk up Walcott because there are no other options. It’s all a bit sad, really. Surely even he knows that Walcott is not the answer, but Wenger / the club has put us in the position where the manager has to praise him or risk ruining the confidence of his only really fit striker going into the new season. I am so demoralized right now.
^This^
Harden up the season hasn’t even started.
It’s getting to the point where I think it best just to ignore Arsène. I understand he’s trying to put a positive spin on a bad situation, but we’re largely there because of his idiosyncratic decision-making. At this stage he either buys some players to strengthen the team before the end of the window or we’re stuck making do with what we’ve got. I will back the players (including Walcott) either way, but if there’s no action on the transfer front, I will no longer back Wenger.
Walcott and Chamberlain will become top, top, top players this season. And the returns of Gabriel and Mertesacker will be like a new signings. That’s 4 top, top, top players for this season…
I stopped being convinced he’d have a great season several seasons ago.
Wenger transfer madness to come shortly (31 August).
What a bunch of debbie-downers. Everyone can have their opinion, but don’t stretch it so far as or say you know what such and such a player is going to do this season, and how each guy is going to perform. Nobody here knows that Walcott is going to have a shit season. Also, nobody knows that we won’t bolster our striking options. You can guess, and have your opinion, but don’t take things too far. A player could have 3 shit seasons in a row and then change his fame and perform to his potential. Even if it seems… Read more »
In my 30 years supporting Arsenal I’ve not seen a poorer all round attacking player than Theo… Don’t get me wrong, I cheer for him and wish him well every game he plays but it seems like we are playing with 10 men at times. Wenger doesn’t trust him, his teammates don’t seem to trust him and he doesn’t trust himself… He is the archetypal Arsenal player of the last 10 years, promising, given a chance, flattered to deceive and ultimately not at the standard required for Arsenal to take the final step towards the title… And the most damming… Read more »
Gervinho to name one? Theo is not ideal (currently) but certainly not as bad as you make out. Alot can change quickly in football with a bit of confidence and the right team behind you. Look at vardy.
Tbf he has had some good patches. The biggest problem is that Arsenal have relied on him too much and he never performs for a whole season. And is not really suited to the style of play. I think he could be really effective in a 4-4-2 paired with Giroud or Alexis as strikers. But as long as we have Ozil 4-4-2 will never happen as he doesn’t have a place in it..
Chamakh … there was another striker who never panned out.
Dench!
Wait what year is it? Did he sign da ting?
Whether we have a new striker or not by Aug 31st, I think we should back Walcott and Giroud. We should also back Iwobi and Akpom and other young players coming through. We seriously cannot expect to challenge for anything unless we are 100% behind our players. Of course we need another attacking talent and a new defender. But I cannot be blamed for stating the obvious – The Emirates Stadium sucks and offers little motivation for players willing to give everything. Let’s get behind our players through and through…
Hope he does well. He did today, which is a good start. It can only help us if he does well, whether we sign anybody else or not. I can’t work out what we are doing in the transfer market based on what is happening and what Wenger is saying. I keep trying. It’s hard to believe there is nobody we could sign, and it was the same last year. If you look at the players we have signed recently they have mostly either been top players who big clubs wanted to offload (eg Alexis, Ozil, Cech), or we gamble… Read more »
I was hoping that at least one positive to come of last season was that AW would be forced to admit his British core experiment had failed and bring in some proper players. Instead here he is once again talking up the potential of Walcott, Ox, Ramsey and Wilshere already injured. How long are we going to keep picking these guys just on the basis of their passport?
Our current squad can beat Liverpool and Leicester but I would love a couple of signings this coming week. Lacazette and Mustafi seems to be our intended targets, and I firmly believe Lacazette will be our number nine come deadline day.
You firmly believe that?
Based on past experiences, I suppose?
Maybe based on that Arsenal have already bid for him??
After Gabriel stepping on a land mine it’s starting to feel like God is a Gooner and even he is trying his best to get Arsene and the board to stop having dick swinging competions amongst themselves and start doing some fucking work. I know we like to keep it under wraps but with the way the media work there is always a sniff of something, but at the moment it really seems like we are not doing a single thing. If poor Chambers and Holding get played on Sunday and we get turned over, it could be so damaging… Read more »
Hearing this is almost as dissapointing as seeing mikel on the bench of another man.
It will be nice if we fans stick together and support our wonderful club rather than just being negatives. We have a great team with great players.
Supporting the team got as many thumbs down as thumbs up?!
very sad state of affairs that.
Gabriel got carried out on a stretcher today, any news on the severity of the injury? Season not even begun yet and its allready all falling to shit. 😛 joking, but then im kind of not. How is Walcott still a member of this team and one of our biggest earners after 10 years years of either dreadfullness at the worst of times to mediocrity at the best of times? If he had joined any of our rivals 10 years ago instead of us you could never imagine him still being a part of their squads and among the best… Read more »
Sounds like the guy that forgot to book the nice restaurant in time for the wedding anniversary talking up the values of the crap restaurant they go to regularly.
Maybe he can wear one of those fake mustaches on Sunday and we can pretend he’s our new signing. We can even give him a new name. I’m going with Ted Striker. (obscure Airplane reference)
By the way, anybody else totally weirded out seeing Arteta on the City bench tonight? I almost cried.
This isn’t going to be a popular view, but I think it’s important to keep the whole transfers thing in context. That leaked report in The Times said we had a 100m transfer budget set for this window. If you knew at start of the summer this was there to bring in a quality CB, CM and forward, you’d probably say ‘yes, that should get the job done’. But now it’s costing 75m for Lukaku and Morata and it’s going to be the same level of inflation across the board for all good players. We are a rich club but… Read more »
It’s amazing that after sooooo many years, so many! I have finally become uninspired by Arsene’s talk.
Amazing and sad I feel.
It is being reported that Lacazette has a hip injury. No doubt it will have a few here slitting their wrists. It’s either a big money striker signing, someone cheap from left field or nobody if this news is correct.
Probably means he’s about to have his medical with us
A real bastard about Gabriel. The options for the mugsmasher game seem to be 1) rush Kos back to partner with Calum 2) 2 out of Calum / Holding / Bielik 3) buy an experienced CB and put him straight in 4) use Nacho as a CB Given that Kos should be ready for the 2nd game I’d probably go for option 2 personally but my guess is AW will go for option 1. Looking on the bright side – at least we have options. The mugsmashers will be as rusty as us and early season games are hard to… Read more »
I bet it will be Kos and Nacho
Holding and Chambers play together for Eng u21 so should get each other in theory.
Debuchy can cover CB as well If necessary.
The one time he did it before he actually looked quite decent there (Obviously I’d prefer a top experienced CB but if Monreals name was mentioned….)
Arsene. Rhymes with something else
parsimonious
The lack of a striker is certainly frustrating. But really, who was/is available at the level people think Arsenal need? Vardy? No. Morata? No. Icardi? No. Lacazatte? No. Those are all 1.5 or 2nd tier strikers. Benzema was perhaps at the level, and that was a non-starter. Other than Lewandowski, who is ACTUALLY a top flight goal scorer that could be taken away from a top team (who also doesn’t cost £100M)? If that player were out there, the media would have made that well known by now….right? If OG can grab 12-15, Alexis bangs in 10-12, Theo nets 7-10,… Read more »
Well, that’s the striking position sorted then (internal solution wins again).
I see we are already at the “support the players we’ve got” stage of our transfer window.
You guys are bringing that in early this year. Swiftly followed by, “we’ll get what we need in january”
if the fans turn that stadium toxic against pool then they honestly pathetic. People are acting as if we have a shit weak squad we came fucking second having seriously underperformed last season an got horrendous luck with injuries. Theo did look really good yesterday, he looked sharp and he looked fit. id love for him to bang two in an see everyone who slates him into the ground on here try to take back their negative comments an show how fickle they are.
Have you ever noticed that it the same “horrendous luck” with injuries every season? The same blips and tactical errors repeated every season? The same under performance of the team every season? The same players who show so much promise every preseason yet under deliver every time? Arsenal have a weak squad and you can swear about it all you like. ALL of these issues with Arsenal lead to the core of the problem – the manager. The sooner he is gone you will see a marked change in the fortune of Arsenal. The sooner he is gone the better… Read more »
The funny thing is it was Arsene’s massive period of success that made our fans so entitled and now they want rid of him. That said, he has most certainly fallen below his standards recently and this is his last year to win the premier league. I will applaud the man and the team regardless
Best comment here for a mile !!!
thanks
When the “horrendous luck with injuries” repeat season after season, it stops being bad luck man
*Poker face on* Walcott is the best striker to have ever played for this club. I’ve always rated him. Always. Never a doubt.