The saga is over and Theo Walcott has signed a new contract with Arsenal Football Club.
It’s undoubtedly good news for Arsenal. It stems the flow of talent away from the club, and shows a renewed willingness to flex our financial muscle.
It’s arguably even better news for Theo. Having steadfastly refused to agree to the club’s initial offer of £75k p/week, he’ll now find himself picking up far more than that. Depending on which red top you read, the weekly salary wages from between £90k to a mammoth £113k. Either way, it seems he has escaped the binds of Arsene’s “socialist” pay structure, simultaneously superseding Lukas Podolski as the club’s highest paid player.
I never imagined that Theo Walcott would be the man for whom Arsenal would break their strict wage hierarchy. Granted, he’s having a statistically outstanding season, but he remains far from perfect. So many more talented players have sought the kind of sums Walcott was demanding, only to find themselves being shown the door to Barcelona or Manchester.
The truth is that Walcott is the lucky beneficiary of a perfect storm of circumstance. Arsenal could not afford the PR disaster of losing another one of their perceived stars. The club is also under more pressure than ever to show ambition in their expenditure. Every time Walcott produced on the pitch, the likelihood of Arsenal caving to his demands increased significantly.
I’m still a little surprised he’s signed. It’s rare that a player gets within six months of a Bosman move and is able to resist, and I went on record as saying that I didn’t think Arsenal and Theo would ever come to an agreement. But Walcott knows that Arsenal is a set-up that suits him, and it’s not clear which (if any) elite clubs would be able to offer him the playing time he gets at the Emirates.
He enjoys playing with the likes of Kieran Gibbs, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Jack Wilshere. At the risk of sounding jingoistic, I think the British core the club are building is important. We are building a group of young players who seem eager to stick together and achieve something. Keeping Walcott benefits the collective.
It’s now very much a case of “over to you, Theo”. He’s got the money he wanted; now he has to justify it. If he doesn’t, at least Arsenal can look to recoup a fee, rather than losing a valuable asset for nothing.
It’s “over to you, Arsene” too. Having tied up the deal that was his priority for January, he now has a couple of weeks remaining to make an impact in the transfer market. Talk of someone like Cavani is wildly unrealistic, although I still think it’s imperative that Arsenal bring in a striker. If we select our first choice front three of Podolski, Giroud and Walcott, we would not have a single forward on the bench. For a club of our size, that is unforgivable.
In a watershed week for Arsenal, I hope tomorrow’s game with Chelsea is a similarly significant landmark in our season. It proved so last season, with a 5-3 victory restoring faith in a team that had spent the early months of the season on the ropes. This fixture at Stamford Bridge could also be pivotal: if we could win there, then against West Ham in midweek, we’d find ourselves just two points behind a Chelsea side who had threatened to pull out of sight. With Spurs facing of against United, this could be a critical week in the race for the Champions League.
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If you fancy a flutter on tomorrow’s game, check out my betting preview for Unibet, complete with predicted line-ups and top tips. You can get 8.5 on Theo to celebrate his new contract with the first goal…
TG
Having watched him this year I think Benteke of Villa would be a good buy. Especially if Villa are relegated this season he would be a good striker – Can play the one man game – big strong and good finish but is faster than Giroud. Arsene could develop him into something special.
What a great move from Sir Arsene…..
Only £3m signing on fee, £100k per week and a super long contract of 3.5 years….
Another rabbit pulled out of a hat by Sir Arsene.
It’s like a signing of a new world class player.
Fuck you, all that say Sir Arsene shows no ambition.
And also well done to you GS for reverting to type and telling us what a good job Arsene has done.
Walcott has proved himself not be a betrayal like Na$ti and VanPurse. Good signing… An unknown striker in the manner of Eduador would do!
Walcott has proved himself not be a betrayer like Na$ti and VanPurse. Good signing… An unknown striker in the manner of Eduador would do!
My question still remain, what is the money doing in the bank? Why must wenger sign only players on free transfer? Arsenal are ahead of chelsea, spurs and man city in fifa ranking world richest club yet we couldn’t afford to buy quality players. Am so much disappointed to be an arsenal fan.
What really upest me most was that we scouts players for other clubs to buy. Wenger has mentioned almost ten players as transfer target yet he hasn’t made a move to secure one, just liking while others buys. I’ll rather say that wenger itself contributed 60% of arsenal downfall while the board has contributed 40%.
Pleas wenger leave arsenal alone.. How about villa, zaha, lope?. Fuck u AW
I think we have a better chance to win against chealsea, if only we dont squander chances, then walcot to me is still developing,when he get 100 per week at this stage what wuld he demand for when he become an invicible?
It is right for the Arsenal to have a British core. Only a British man can understand what it means to play for Arsenal and pinch ladies bottoms and drink cups of tea all day long.
Forget Walcott. That deal was done and dusted about a week ago. We should now be looking to provide genuine competition for first team places, particularly up front and in front of the defense (DM).
How have we let Newcastle steal our thunder and agree a deal with Montpelier for their skipper who, when I watched him in the Champions League against us both home and away looked ‘special’. And at a snip of £6.7m, French, I would’ve thought AW be all over that.
Sadly I think that my initial prediction of no new players in during this transfer window will be fulfilled.
#wenger_out
BoB, I guess you’re not as good a judge of footballer as Arsene Wenger and his scouts. You realise that none of the top sides have made bids for these French lads, even though they’ve been on the market and widely-known for quite a few seasons?
Why didn’t Man Utd go for M’Vila, when they need a lad like that? Why didn’t Chelsea go for Remy? Why didn’t Man City buy that Montpellier lad when they think they need a backup CB?
And earlier in the season, why didn’t Arsenal bid for Sahin when he was available for loan and Liverpool snapped him up?
Maybe these lads aren’t as good as their press releases, and Arsene Wenger has more discernment than a bunch of English peasants.
Ok wenger ..now what your next move..keep money in the bank or you want to win trophies and qualify for CL again?..do not waste your money on average players…go for cavani..you can get him at 40M…
Look peasants, let me spell it out for you….
Sir Arsene is here to make money for the board not to keep you peasants happy with new signings.
Just look at this master stroke…..
Over 3.5 years Walcott (world class) will have cost us £21m. In 2015 we will sell him for a minimum of £16m. That means we have just signed up a World class striker for NOTHING! (We won’t need to pay his last year of wages).
Now is Sir Arsene a fucking genius or what?
Now that is why you Englander dogs can’t even lay grass while Sir Arsene (French class) takes the piss in the transfer market….getting players for Free and making millions for Sir Ivan and Sir Kroenke.
Fuck me, this must be the strongest bench in the league….
Mannone, Arshavin, Kos, Ramsey, Frimpong, Santos, CFJ
Fucking Chelsea are gonna shit themselves when they take a look at our bench.
Well done Sir Arsene.
Not quite the 2-1 hammering we got at ManU earlier in the season but a 2-1 hammering again nonetheless. Chelsea ragged us in that first half and we were second best to everything, no excuses, AW said last week we started slow and it cost us 2 goals yet 7 days on and we’ve done exactly the same yet this time we had 11 men on the pitch, another penalty given away in a big game aswell. We simply haven’t got the quality in the squad that is needed to compete for the top 4, shame and its shit to admit but its so so true. Look at our bench today, the 2 subs we bring on to make a difference are Ramsey who is either giving the ball away from 4 of every 5 touches or is fouling, and Arshavin which shows how desperate AW has become after the Russian couldn’t even make the bench when everyone’s fit and wants rid of him. Yes Podolski, Arteta and Ox were missing but if they are fit it moves Coq to the bench, Diaby also and gives us one attacking option from the bench instead of none, its a joke and to give ourselves a chance of top 4 we need to buy 2 or 3 quality players otherwise we’ve got no chance with this current squad but i dont think AW will spend sadly, if he makes top 4 with this shower then it will be his best achievement ever IMO.
Szczesny needs competition.
Sagna has gone downhill bigtime, if he wants out the let him and start playing Jenkinson.
Gibbs needs to work on his defending and another left back brought in for competition, Santos to go.
Vermaelen has not been the same player we signed, Torres went past him as though he wasn’t there, WTF? I’d take the armband off him and give it the Arteta with Jack as VC and consider moving Vermaelen to DM if we aren’t going to buy anyone, that way we cover a problem position, bring Kos in at the back and buy a CB to play alongside him with Per as back up.
Arteta is missed badly is this side, he needed a rest so the injury is a blessing for him but not the team as we keep losing and miss his experience and on field talk.
Diaby needs to be sub and brought back slowly, he’s thrown him straight in to the big games from the start and his worst trate is giving the ball away sloppily and yet he keeps doing it again and again and again yet AW stick with him. Diaby cost us the penalty, it was his sloppy ball straight to a blue shirt that started the break that led to the penalty, but AW never learns so how is the team ever going to?
Olivier Giroud, you are not good enough to be in this team unless we are wanting to become a mid-table team. He’s reminding me more of Chamakh’s time with us more and more, he lacks aggression with everything, big bloke but never wins a header, scored a few to start with but goes far too long without scoring. Isn’t great at holding the ball up, all the things he should be doing he’s making a balls of everything.
A new CF is an absolute must, and it must be quality goalscorer, not another average clubman who we pay too much for.