Former Gunner Kevin Campbell reckons that Arsenal have been wasting Theo Walcott and the club have massively let the 28-year-old down.
Campbell, who played for both Arsenal and Spurs during his career, was outraged after Theo scored during the Gunners’ 6-0 Europa League win on Thursday. The pundit believes the club is wasting the forward by not playing him and his performance against BATE Borisov proves it.
“In my opinion I think the club has let Theo Walcott down in a sense,” the 47-year-old said on ITV’s Europa League Highlights show. “When Walcott came into the football club fair enough there was fantastic players there, your Theirry Henry’s etc.
“But he was still learning his trade. He still needs to be developed and have the tools for the toolbox.
“His talent hasn’t developed over the years. I think he has patches of play where he can be devastating, and everybody gets frustrated because they know how talented he is. I think he got 19 goals last season.”
Walcott doubles the lead for Arsenal pic.twitter.com/jx2OGXCXaA
— Terje (@xArsenalTerje) December 7, 2017
Although I may criticise Theo a lot, I do like him, and one thing you can say of the man, he knows how to produce results, even when he’s not playing well. In fact, he’s netted three and provided three assists in the Europa League this season despite not looking at all on his game.
Against BATE, the Englishman was on fire and deservedly got his goal, as well as an assist. However, there’s a reason he’s not made any Premier League starts this season and has only been brought on as a substitute three times. He’s not been great.
It’s this inconsistency that Arsene Wenger obviously finds hard to deal and why Theo struggles to get regular runs in the first team. The manager can’t keep benching someone else in favour of Theo when the forward’s off the boil. Look at the stick he gets for keeping Alexis Sanchez on when he’s playing terribly and imagine how much worse it would be if he did the same with Theo.
While Theo can be useful, I can’t help but disagree that Arsenal are the reason he’s not met his full potential and I wouldn’t call him ‘world class’ either… I’m looking at you Glenn Hoddle.
“He’s got fantastic ability now and he had it when he was 20, what’s happened in them eight years that’s what I’m saying,” Hoddle said.
“I’m saying from 20 to 28 we had an opportunity, this kid could have been world class, everyone would have known him, he would have been playing regularly for England.
“He just needed to learn the game and he was developed too quickly.”
No mention of his injury problems of course. It’s all Arsenal’s fault…