Young forward Theo Walcott signs for Arsenal
833 comments January 20th, 2006
Fantastic. A week after the story first broke, Theo Walcott has completed his move to Arsenal.
The fee of £5m rising to £12m is a record for a 16-year-old, and astonishing considering that he could’ve left Southampton for under a million in March. Rupert Lowe isn’t happy that Theo turned down the bigger offer from Chelsea, but Rupert’s woe just makes me all the more delighted.
Theo will wear the number 32 shirt he had at Southampton, and Arsene says he expects him to be challenging for a first team place “after an adaptation period of a few weeks“.
Theo himself said, “Iâ??m so pleased to be joining Arsenal, a club I have admired for a long time. Coming to Arsenal will give me the opportunity to work with world class players every day and play football at the highest possible level. Itâ??s a strange day, because Iâ??m also very sad to be moving from Southampton. Iâ??m leaving many friends and some great coaches who have been so important to my career so far, but I leave with many great memories from the club. Iâ??m now really looking forward to meeting my new team mates and working hard as an Arsenal player“.
As I said before: just fantastic. The top young English talent in the country is at Arsenal. Enjoy it.
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Looking forward to tomorrow, there’s another piece of good news with Sol Campbell set to return from injury. Hurrah.