http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/29893152 Arsenal have opened talks with Theo Walcott about extending the England forward's contract. The 25-year-old, whose current deal expires in 2016, returned to action last weekend after nearly 10 months out with a knee injury. "We are starting to sit down with him," said Gunners manager Arsene Wenger. "I think he has one and a half years to go on his contract in December and it is never an easy job with him, you know." Walcott came off the bench after 80 minutes of the 3-0 victory over Burnley last Saturday as he played his first game since suffering a cruciate knee injury in an FA Cup win over Tottenham on 4 January. The England international joined Arsenal from Southampton in 2006 and has scored 45 goals in 195 league appearances. "Will he be at his peak in the next few years? He should be, yes," added Wenger. "He is 25. It is the best years now so hopefully we can profit from that." He's a very good player and gives us that something different in attack so the contract extension makes sense. The big BUT is the man has a poor injury record and has been absent at key moments and for long periods. He's already missed a large chunk of this season and we don't know how he'll come back. Will he get injured again straight away or be in and out? We need players who are available more consistently and not be injury prone.
He's a first XI player for sure if he can stay consistently fit. But can he? He wil have been here 10 seasons at the end of this current season and he will only have played more than 30 prem games in 2 of those seasons. Right now he clearly is not a player we cna rely on for a season. So I just don't get the timing of this. Why sit down to discuss it after spending 10 months out injured? Wouldn't it be logical to do it in 6 months time after he's proven he's fit to play regularly and consistently? If the reason that hasn't been done is that AW thinks that mentioning it to him as an idea would make him threaten to leave then he's not the sort we want at our club anyway. Any sensible footballer should be expected to earn a new contract. What has he done to earn this contract extension lately?
I can understand tying him down to a contract but a significant pay rise would be wrong. I agree that he needs to be available and do it on a more consistent basis.
I think Wenger is learning from his mistakes of letting players run down there contract like RVP and Sagna did and is willing to take a risk on theo and offer him a new contract before he is even fully fit.
I think it is a good thing that Wenger has gone in there early and is sorting the contract out early, rather than going to the wire. Walcott is a player I like very much, he adds another dimension to our squad and on his day can be very destructive. But his injury record for us is poor to say the least and he has yet to have a few good seasons for us to warrant a significant pay rise. It's almost like players don't have to do much to get one nowadays.
Get him signed up as quickly as we can. Wenger has been criticised for letting contracts run down, so he's doing the right thing by trying to get this one sorted out sooner rather than later. Bit concerned with the 'it's never an easy job with him' comment. As last time showed, Walcott stalled for months on a new contract, so even more reason to try and wrap it up as soon as we can.
If there's a significant pay rise involved then that will annoy me. If it's just an extension with a tiny amount of inflation then fair enough.
Why? When he plays.. he scores a lot of goals. The thing about contracts is that it's hard to use injuries as a reason for not giving a pay rise. Its not exactly Theos fault he keeps getting injured - its more likely an issue with our training/treatment methodologies. Also as Wenger says he's just coming into his 'peak' years now.
No one is questioning his worth, as he is a top forward. But bloody hell, he has one of the worse injury records for us and probably for any top team in the EPL. You can't just ignore that. Either he is made of balsa wood or we still have issues with our training methods. We've screwed up many a season with losing our key players and something needs to be done to curb these excesses.
This is plainly horse s**t. Almost any employer in any industry would get rid of a sicknote employee or not extend their contract if it was running out. Try having a poor attendance due to sickness then going for a new job and sending in your CV to the new potential employers. They will ask your old company for attendance as part of a reference and run a mile if you have significant absences. They (rightly or wrongly) don't care that it's not your fault that you were ill, because regardless of your worth when you're there, it costs them significant sums of money when you aren't. The same should apply to footballers. I'm not saying Theo is someone to cut ties with as he is clearly very good. But there is no way he deserves a pay rise. That would send a dangerous message to everyone in the squad... "do jack s**t for a year and we'll give you a payrise". By all means, his quality means we should extend the contract on the same wages purely for the purposes of avoiding losing him for nothing, but by god he doesn't deserve a pay-rise.
Exactly. My guess is he wants some assurances from Wenger about playing time or playing CF. But then again could be after a pay rise. He does have some bargaining power as he has age and talent on his side but his injury record does make it harder. Either way it is an interesting comment to make from Wenger.
I'm with you on this one. Although Walcott is top quality, he hasn't done no way enough to warrant a healthy pay-rise, which would obviously come with a contract extension. What the hell is this world coming to when these footballers get paid shed loads and then get a pay-rise for mmmmmm no reason at all. At least work your arse off on the field and deserve it!
If you think about it from a legal perspective. The cause of your sickness comes from your work - In most areas of work, if you are fired/mistreated because of this you have a strong claim for legal action. In American Football/MMA/Basketball/high level Athletics.. the athletes get regular bloodtests to see where their cortisol/hormone levels are and wether they are over-trained or not. I'm highly sceptical we do this at Arsenal - If the athletes bodies are showing signs of deterioration we should be resting them. (During those periods they should be training less.) At 23 The guy scored 23 goals from a wide right position. That's pretty much elite - level. The fact he is entering his best years means he is almost certainly going to get a pay rise.
His injury proneness is highly unlikely to be because of his work (if it was because of his work then you'd expect every other single person in our squad to have had the same amount of injuries and time off as him... which they haven't). He's just in the unfortunate position that his injury proneness has such a massive impact on his ability to do his work.
I think it is a perfect time for arsenal to negotiate now.... He will feel more obliged after been paid whilst having rehab and other players are excelling.
