Gooner Daily

At the end of the 2012/13 season, Theo Walcott had scored 21 goals and created 13 assists – his best output in all his footballing years. This ultimately meant that there was a new wave of expectation surrounding the Arsenal star at the start of last season.

Walcott began the 2013/14 campaign at a rather slow pace in terms of his output in the final third, with his assist to Olivier Giroud in the North London Derby being his most telling contribution in the early part of the campaign. He finally broke his goalscoring duck with a technically astute finish against Olympique Marseille but he suffered an abdominal injury in the build up to the home clash against those goons from Stoke and required a surgery to mitigate the problem. This made him miss two months of action.

With the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Serge Gnabry and Tomas Rosicky in good form, Arsene Wenger took a rather cautious approach with Walcott following his return to full fitness. Following a couple of substitute appearances which included creating an assist despite coming into the pitch with just four minutes to spare, Walcott showed what he was made of in the rather dismal 6-3 capitulation in the hands of Manchester City at the Etihad. The Englishman showed good reactions to score two well-taken goals. He followed this up with another brace against West Ham at Upton Park and he began 2014 with a clipped finish against Cardiff that put the game beyond doubt.

With Olivier Giroud falling ill and Nicklas Bendtner suffering an injury to his ankle, Walcott was afforded a chance can to strut his stuff in the center forward position in the North London Derby against Tottenham on Saturday. His linkup play and movement was brilliant but his finishing was a bit wayward. However, on the 81st minute after Arsene Wenger had made all his substitutions, Walcott was tackled by Danny Rose and he couldn’t get back up.

While he was stretched out, he trolled the Spurs fans by reminding them of the scoreline and they pelted coins at him, but the Arsenal fans responded by throwing red and white scarves at their hero while signing his songs. When we had learned that he had suffered an ACL injury, the curtains came down on his 2013/14 and it extended even to the 2014 World Cup.

I can’t stress much about the loss of Walcott without revealing his stats so far last season with some aid from WhoScored,

In the Premier League, Walcott was in a rich vein of goalscoring form with five goals in his last games and with Nicklas Bendtner and Olivier Giroud out of the equation, he was odds on to get an extended run of games in his favored center forward position that would have led to him scoring more goals.

With Walcott out for the remainder of the campaign, his teammates went on to win the FA Cup but the Gunners crashed out of the Champions League (no thanks to Bayern Munich) and their Premier League title contending flames were doused in March. With Ramsey also out injured for a considerable chunk of the second half of the season, the goals were hard to come by, even though Olivier Giroud, Santi Cazorla and Lukas Podolski made immense contributions to the team’s cause.

Walcott also offer a threat going forward with his blistering pace a thorn in the flesh of opposition defenders. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has his own reserves of pace as well as a direct style of play but Walcott’s decision making is unbelievably quick and his finishing, boy, is up there with the best in the business. Walcott is the kind of player that might not necessarily have an outstanding game but in the wake of half a chance, the opposition net always ends up with the ball inside it.

With Alexis Sanchez and Danny Welbeck combining well as well as threatening defenses with their pace, having Walcott back would essentially mean that Arsenal’s attacking trio would be a menace to opposition defenders, provided they get the right service from the midfield. With Arsenal going through a spell that has so many of its players on the sidelines, seeing a player return – especially if that player is Theo Walcott is heartwarming.

I hope he gets eased into action slowly and I’m also hoping that he won’t have any setbacks as well. It’s good to have Arsenal’s version of the Flash back in training.

Opposition defenders, beware.

Sayonara.

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