A rumour emerged this week that Everton are ready to offer Arsenal £30m for Theo Walcott, which sounds a little too good to be true.
While I don’t dislike Theo in the slightest, if Everton really are willing to offer anything north of £20m, Arsenal should bite their hand off.
The 28-year-old has reached what’s widely known as peak age for a forward. However, despite being at Arsenal for 11 years, he doesn’t seem to be any closer to either having a consistent season or making Arsene Wenger’s first team.
As usual, Theo started strongly last season. A new routine both on and off the pitch appeared to have allowed him to hone his skills, build his confidence and keep his head.
He scored 19 goals over all competitions last season, which isn’t entirely bad, except 11 of them were netted before December when he was sidelined with a calf strain. Five of the eight he scored afterwards were in the FA Cup against non-league Sutton and Lincoln, as well as his former club, Southampton.
Before that, he was scoring in big games against Liverpool, Chelsea, and Manchester City.
It’s the same most seasons. Theo won’t stop scoring for a couple of months, we’ll naively think ‘this is it’ and then his form will drop off or his leg will.
When he’s good, he’s good, but when a player’s only ‘good’ 50% of the time, are they really worth keeping around?
While Theo is home-grown, which would boost his price, given his inconsistency and injury woes, £30m would be a fantastic bit of business and most likely a brilliant move for the player.
The only thing is, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.