With international football taking center stage, I took out some time to see what some nations had to offer on the pitch. Nigeria hosted Uganda in the beautiful Akwa Ibom Stadium and the game was fondly remembered for Vincent Enyeama reaching his 100th cap. The goalie has served the country for 13 years and he has produced moments of sheer quality and consistency over the years. However the party was spoiled when some Ugandan bloke scored the onlygoal of the match to continue Nigeria’s winless streak in the stadium.
Moving on to things related with Arsenal, the forgotten fringe figure, Lukas Podolski, scored in Germany’s 2-2 draw with Australia. Mesut Ozil played the entire game and even wore the captain’s armband for 30 minutes when Sami Khedira was substituted. Elsewhere, the World’s Best striker, Lord Nicklas Bendtner scored a hat-trick in Denmark’s 3-2 win over the United States. Yes, I know that the Lord has left the club but some Arsenal fans (me included) follow his progress in VFL Wolfsburg and we were happy to see the Lord find the net in his last appearance for the German outfit.
England takes on Lithuania tomorrow in an important European qualifier and it would be interesting to see who Roy Hodgson would line up in his starting eleven but from an Arsenal perspective, we would be watching closely to see what Kieran Gibbs, Danny Welbeck and Theo Walcott would bring to the table.
Speaking of Walcott, he has been on the news recently when Football Talk published a piece that he had a training bust up with Arsene Wenger and that can see things turn sour in terms of his future with the club. At the time Walcott signed his last contract, he was indispensable to the club, scoring important goals and he was requesting for a run-out in the middle instead of the right wing berth he had made his own. Wenger actually heeded to his demands and he put up some hot and cold performances spearheading Arsenal’s attack with his last game as a center forward coming up in the North London derby in January.
Following a poor challenge from Danny Rose, Walcott suffered an ACL injury and things have turned for the worse since then. Off the pitch, he got married to his heartthrob and things seemed all peachy and creamy but since his return to full fitness, he has featured sporadically for the club. Walcott has managed score three goals in his handful of appearances this season but he has gone further down the pecking order with Alexis Sanchez and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain favored ahead of him. When the Gunners played Tottenham at White Hart Lane, Wenger preferred to play Welbeck that just returned from injury ahead of Walcott.
It’s quite evident that Wenger has some faith in the English speedster. Another classic example came in the FA Cup quarterfinal victory over Manchester United. When the Ox suffered that hamstring injury, Walcott has stripped and was ready for action, only for the manager to change his mind and bring on Ramsey, much to the frustration of Walcott.
Then there’s the niggling issue of his contract situation. Walcott currently has 15 months left on his current deal (100,000 per week) that made him one of the highest earners at the club before the likes of Ozil and Alexis came along. That was a protracted saga that went on for quite some time before both parties mutually agreed on a forward path. Now we are faced with a similar situation, and it seems as if Arsenal is gearing themselves to make a decision on Walcott’s future this summer. The player himself might be disgruntled but he has three plausible options,
- Sign a new deal and fight for his place in the team
- Chicken out and decide to move elsewhere or,
- Sit out his fat contract and leave on a Bosman.
Arsenal will certainly not want to be left with option three so the club would want to do what they can to retain his services or sell him to the highest bidder. Right now, Wenger needs every player he can get at his disposal as the team is charging for a strong finish in the Premier League as well as defending their FA Cup crown.
Walcott remains an important asset to the team and we would nice his services between now and May.
I don’t know what the future holds for him though.
Sayonara.
Gooner Daily has been nominated for the Best Sports blog category (section 22) in the 2014 Nigerian Blog Awards. Please vote!
You can download the Gooner Daily BlackBerry App to receive notifications on your Smart Phone when a post is published.
You can follow Gooner Daily on Twitter @goonerdaily. I’ll follow back
Feel free to visit Gooner Daily’s Facebook page and click on the like button.
You can also join Gooner Daily’s Mailing List to get notifications of new posts by email by clicking on the Follow button
