by Nia Griffiths

Theo Walcott believes the sky’s the limit with this ‘one of the best‘ squads he’s worked with and has his eyes firmly on the Premier League title next season.

The forward, who is currently in talks over a new contract, reflected on last season recently. Not that there was much to reflect on. The 26-year-old picking up a string of knee and groin injuries and only featured in 22 matches after finding it hard to slot back into the first team. By the end of last season, he was finally back in action and even got to feature (and score) in our FA Cup final win against Aston Villa.

“I didn’t want the season to end,” Walcott admitted. “Not getting in the team made it a frustrating season for myself but when you’re out for such a long time it’s difficult to get into a winning team.”

The England international also gave an indicator that he could be staying at Arsenal, praising the current squad and targeting more silverware.

“I’ve been in a lot of squads and this is one of the best that I’ve been involved in,” he said. “I want to be a part of that. There’s something special in this group of players. We’ve got to keep this group together because I think that successful teams stay together for a long time.

“I think this team can be very successful from the two FA Cups now. The next big step is to challenge for the Premier League, which if we’d had our form in the second half of the season, could have been us coming first.”

He added finally, “You don’t want to use the word ‘if’ in sport so we want to make sure we do it from the start [this time].”

In the nine years he’s been at Arsenal, Walcott has made over 300 appearances, scored 76 goals and set up 63. Although his technique can be a bit rough around the edges, at the end of the season (and beginning of this one) we got a real glimpse of what the forward was truly capable of.

With a good run of games, he could go on to be truly fantastic.