This very fact escapes so many people. Walcott is a quality player if played the right way. I totally agree, he is no winger and plays nothing like one. The jounro actually highlights by commenting our recent change of play "It is a peculiarly English way of playing, a refined version of direct football whereby, rather than hoofing hopefully for the corners Arsenal instead instruct Walcott to run hopefully for the corner. Under this system the speeding Walcott is basically a punt downfield made flesh, a living breathing percentage-launch and chief instrument of, not so much kick and rush football, as rush and rush football." All Arsene has done is alter our playing style to cater for Walcott's blistering pace, finishing ability but lack of ball control, changing him into some sort of auxillary striker/support to RVP. This is different to our proper system which is where we have our front three interchanging though passing and moving. It's great as this has made us more direct, focussing on results than just possessional play. This is why we are scoring more and winning more games at the moment. At last a Plan B!
People dont understand our formation. You do realise we play with 3 FORWARDS??? It's not 1991 anymore guys, Theo is not stuck on the wing of a flat 4-4-2. (He is part of our forward line NOT our midfield) Messi, Ronaldo, David Villa, Daniel Strurridge, Robihno, Aguero (sometimes), Sanchez etc.. all play from a wide position. The position is not bad for him at all. If he plays down the middle we would have to play someone else just behind him and thus completely change our formation because he does'nt have the physical strength to 'hold the ball up'. Theo is capable of 20 goals a season from the position he currently plays.
TheBear - I base my comments on what I see. Far too often Theo is hugging the touchline, I don't want to see that, I want to see him on the shoulder of the CB not out wide. when he is wide he plays like a winger and crosses the ball .... to the opposition. He could play as an inside right - he doesn't have to be up the middle, nobody said he should be. You can't say we play with 3 forwards because most of the time our wide players cross the ball - they are not played in. Theo has in recent weeks been played in, he is in positions as a striker not a winger, we want to see more of that. We complain about this all the time, there is nobody to cross the ball to and Theo can't cross anyway, so why do we insist on playing that way ?! Glad we are changing that.
This. it is obvious its walcotts best position. he is a forward now but he isnt down the middle where his poor touch and terribly weak strength would cripple his game. He is in his best spot now.
The big difference for me is the fullback. When Sagna was out Theo had to track back alot more because Djourou/whoever did not have the pace to get up and down the flank. Now with Sagna fully fit we're seeing Theo cutting in more and scoring goals. 9 goals 13 assists so far, which is better than Bale, Lennon, Malouda, Young, Valencia, Johnson. He is certainly a confidence player though and I think his poor performances often follow criticism from the press. Still if he had been playing like this since the start of the Season he would have at least 15 -20 goals.
Honestly he is better than bale. Has more strings to his bow. Bale really doesnt have much except tapping it down the wing and kicking it as hard as he can across the box. Vs a fullback with pace bale is a non factor and just a waste of a player
No ! He is playing his best position when he is NOT out wide, out wide he is almost useless and he seems to start games out wide which is a nonsense.
I wouldn't retract anything I've said about him. (although I don't think I was too harsh) Sagna is bringing the best out of him, and he's put in some decent performances lately. If you look back every game he's been particularly good at was on those games where we are rampant, and look like we could score 8 goals. He's always been good in those, yet I have to think really hard when he's ever been good in a balanced, well contested match. It was the same the previous 3 years. He's always had some really good performances (low percentage) but for the rest of the games he hovered from "really average" to "Arsenal are a man down". And this period reminds me of the time he scored a hat-trick for England. He was distinctly mediocre leading up to it, people started re-hyping him again saying we are wrong to slate him, and then he went back to being distinctly mediocre again. How many other players have we given so many chances when they kept playing so average? We dropped Arshavin (IMO a better footballer in every sense except pace) as soon as he started having a few bad performances, and we never gave him a run of starts to get back to form. Pay attention at how often other players are reluctant to pass to Walcott even when he opens up, unless in a counter-attacking situation. It's like he is programmed to just (1) start sprinting and tumble/leave the ball behind, or (2) run and bounce off a defender and proceed shouting at the nearest ref. I'm sorry a few decent to good performances shouldn't make him a starter in a top 4 EPL club. Impact sub? sure.
But he is most effective strting wide and picking his moments to run through the middle. He cannot play as the focal point of a team as the striker. It wouldnt work. Not in a top team. Look at spuds when adebayoor was injured they were awful before defool just cant hold up possesion or link the play at all. Walcott would just get bullied up there and doesnt have the touch to get away with being weak on the ball. It would cripple our whole team.
Playing an up-to-date 3 forward system requires all 3 players to have good ball control, strength, shooting/finishing and passing/crossing abililty. You bascially have to be a well rounded and skillful forward to play in such a dynamic and demanding system. We have players like RVP, OXO and Gervinho who are better suited to this system. However, Arsene has adapted our current system to play to Walcott's strengths and it's worked really well. It's almost like a 4-4-2 when walcotts on the ball, but a more dynamic version. After watching Arsene do this i've changed my mind on making Walcott a CF. Having him play on the right side enables him to avoid the big CBs and allow him to run at the full back, cut in and pass to RVP/ or shoot. Perfect!
Arsenal4Life - Walcott is most effective when he makes his run between the full back and one of the CBs, check videos of Walcott's goals, most have come from that position. Yes he has scored goals coming from outside the full back but, they are far fewer in number.
He plays as a wing-forward. He shouldn't be hugging the touchline, he should be just inside, with Sagna overlapping outside him. The runs between the full-back and CB mean he can either shoot or cross or pull back. That's where he's at his best. Playing him against a bit CB he'd get none of the ball. Playing him as a winger he'd just hit the byline and cross, get frustrated, and play poorly. Where he's played at the moment it's almost a 442 / 433 hybrid as mentioned. He pushes forward as a striker alongside RvP, with Sagna good enough to cover for him. He also tracks back and tackles like a winger. He's playing well because he trusts Sagna, and he has been given a bit more freedom IMO, which also comes from the experience of the MF with Arteta, Song & Rosicky all smart footballers who are able to track back and break up play. I'd like to see some of the analysis of Theo's play, where his average position and most touches are etc.
It's not rocket science, if Walcott had played in his natural position since he came to Arsenal, he would've been another Hernandez, Van Nistleroy, Inzaghi. His main assests were his pace and striking ability. Now I understand why Wenger played Walcott on the wing because he did the same thing with Henry when he first came to Arsenal; he did it in order to bulk up Walcott and to make him more technically efficient. This worked with Henry, unfortunately it didn't with Walcott. The problem with most strikers is that their effectiveness is based on how well the team is playing and the delivery they get. The reason why Hernandez scored 20goals in his first season at United was because he was surronded by players that could feed him the ball easily and his lethal finishing... other than that, he hasn't offered much this season because he is one dimensional. The game is changing and centre forwards need to do more than be a fox in the box. Walcott (I believe) has never gotten a chance to play in his natural striking role because frankly, at the time he has been at Arsenal we have; had better strikers than Walcott and we haven't got a natural winger to replace him (that was until Oxo came onto the scene). Now of course, Wenger is not going to sacrifice playing Walcott in RVP's position for obvious reasons and he's not going to revert back to 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 in order to accomodate Walcott. It would be nice to see RVP playing behind Walcott in a Bergkamp/Henry partnership but I doubt we'd sacrifice our current formation for that. Point is, people get on Walcott's back but he is not playing in his natural position. If he bulked up a bit more, was able to play in the centre and improved his first touch, he would be our Van Nistleroy.
Thats like saying if he bulked up more and and was able to play in midfield he would be our Maradona. He doesn't need to bulk up at all, he can play as he is, as long as it isn't as a wide man play him as a forward, simple - he can play either side of RVP - as long as he is forward.
Exactly, With sagna coming up it allows Theo to come inside, as more of a striker and allow sagna to do the winger part works the same on the other side with gibbs/santos and gervinho/oxo When in full attack we end up with basically playing... Gibbs--Gerv--RVP--Theo--Sagna ----Rosicky--Song---Wilshere ------------ -------Verm----Koss can see why we're so vulnerable to counter attacks....
These days the full backs have to get involved in the attacks. It has the added advantage that if a full-back can get forward well, he can completely remove the threat of the winger on his side by taking him deep in his own half.
yeah he's fine on the right, he just needs support(and is now getting it with a fit Sagna back in the team) I CANT THINK OF ANOTHER PLAYER THAT GETS AS MUCH UNFAIR CRITISCM AS WALCOTT. He can do better I agree but at the same time he's outperforming most (if not all) the other wide players in the league. Walcott is proving to be more effective than Gervinho and 95% of the other wing forwards in the league, as the stats prove. I would pick Walcott over Gervinho every time. (also Oxo's natural position is in the middle as an attacking mid) Like I said earlier he is capable of getting 20 goals a Season from his current position.
I agree, Theo should be playing far more centrally in a 4-3-3. When he does, he is excellent because he is able to spring the offside trap, draw players away from RVP, or finish beautifully. He is perfect for the 4-3-3 that Barca play, yet we seem to push him further onto the right for some reason. He has pace but his strength isn't crossing.
We do not play the same system as Barca, I don't think the Barca system would work in England, we don't have the players to play like Barca, and Theo is not another Messi. Theo has never played centrally, he doesn't have the stature or strength to play centrally, our system would lack a lot of width if he played centrally and RVP would not get as much space if he played centrally. He scores a lot of goals when he comes inside because he has been able to pull the full-back wide. If he was not wide in the first place, the full back would have no need to go wide, to be caught out there. There is so much wrong with this premise that I'm surprised you have got the support that you have. The 4-3-3 requires the forwards to be very wide, it is absolutely essential in fact. If they don't the formation becomes very very narrow. The midfielders cannot provide width.
