Walcott still lacking a ‘footballing brain’

Arsenal finally put together a convincing display of football for the first time this season, beating Bolton Wanderers 3-0 at the Emirates Stadium yesterday.

Robin van Persie scored the first two goals, and in doing so joined an elite club of players to have scored 100 or more goals for the Gunners. It is nice to see such a superb player, who has had endless bad luck with injuries over the years, confirmed as one of the club’s greats.

As well as bad luck with injuries, it is a shame that such a quality striker has been deprived of the kind of service the likes of Ian Wright and Thierry Henry benefited from in their times at the club. Although Walcott set up the century goal yesterday, it is a shame to see him as Robin’s prime source for assists.

Accused a few years ago of ‘lacking a football brain’, I’m afraid the criticism still holds a great deal of validity, and I don’t know if it’s something that is going to change. Time and time again, Theo’s pace proves a great outlet as he gets in behind defences, giving us an easy direct pass to aim for, but time and time again he then proceeds to mess things up with poor decision-making.

He is both our best weapon and our biggest weakness. No one else in the side can provide that pace and off-the-ball movement, but at the same time, he is technically one of our poorest players, which isn’t really good enough at a club of our size.

Normally a decent finisher, his worst moment yesterday was his lack of composure when put through by Alex Song. It seems when he has too much time to think, he panics; he is a quick instinct player at best, but in our style of play he will be required to pass the ball better than he does, learn to beat a few players, and to score more of a variety of goals. At the moment is he is the absolute embodiment of a one-trick pony.

Although only 18 and new to Premier League football, summer signing Alex Chamberlain already looks like he possesses a more natural gift for football. He is less one-dimensional than Walcott, whom he will inevitably be compared to. With Walcott and Benayoun both out injured now, perhaps we will see a little more of Chamberlain. We might not see it for a while, but I fancy that soon enough he’ll be a better player than Walcott. Age doesn’t always matter, as we’ve seen recently with Jack Wilshere.

As I said, although Walcott definitely has his merits, if he’s this frustrating to watch, imagine what he must be like to play with. Van Persie deserves better service as he climbs up our all-time goalscoring charts.

Mark Brus

I'm 23-years-old and currently living in Bristol, studying to be a journalist. I've been hooked on Arsenal since I was about 10, and as much as I sometimes wish I could stop, I can't give them up. Favourite player of all time would have to be Patrick Vieira for the sheer passion with which he played the game.

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