Theo Walcott is feeling talkative
1 comment February 28th, 2008
After scoring his first Premier League goals at the weekend, you can understand if Theo Walcott is feeling a little bubbly. So much so, in fact, that he’s been telling Arsenal.com about his opinions on all sorts of things, starting with Aston Villa’s Gabriel Agbonlahor.
Agbonhalor, like Walcott, is young, fast, and feted as the future of English football. Indeed, in the past eighteen months, Agbonlahor’s progress has moved on a speed Walcott can only envy. In spite of this, there’s no jealousy on the part of the former Southampton forward, whose quick to praise his U-21 colleague:
“With Gabby you can over-cook a pass and he’ll still get there because his pace is just phenomenal really, it’s a joke. I love playing alongside players with pace. He’s a clever player and he’s got a good finish on him, which helps.”
We’ll certainly have to keep an eye on him come Saturday.
Walcott was also keen to emphasise the squad’s support for stricken Eduardo:
“Of course Eduardo has been on our minds. It was a quiet coach ride home and felt just like a loss in truth. We had a couple of days off and then actually went bowling to keep our team-spirit up. A couple of lads went to see him yesterday and reported back to the rest of us.”
I love the idea of the squad going bowling together. I can imagine William Gallas, after being beaten by a late strike from Cesc, sitting in the middle of the lane crying and refusing to take off his shiny bowling shoes.
What with Eduardo’s injury, fans will be hoping Theo can shoulder some of the goalscoring burden. The boy himself is confident he can:
“I feel upbeat, I feel confident. The goals helped and they gave me a boost so hopefully I can take that into Saturday.
It was nice to get a poacher’s goal. My agents have told me I need more of those. Then the second was more about the kind of player I am. Left-foot too, which is something people have questioned me about.
Now I just have to improve with every game and time will tell [if I can fill the striker’s role]. After all, the boss picks the team so when I do play I will just do my best.”
His agents have been telling him he should score more poacher’s goals? Bizarre.
Alisher Usmanov has spoken about his steadily increasing stake in Arsenal, stating that he will not buy more than 25% of the clubs shares. Whether that is because that is genuinely the extent of his ambition or because he realises a takeover is currently impossible is, well, bleeding obvious.
Till tomorrow.
