I recognize gervinhos bad form (though not as dramatic as people are suggesting, a single player hasn't singlehandedly lost us a game this season) but his contribution prior to his injury was still way more influential than anything walcott has done since. Sorry if I'm taxing your goldfish brain, I know you can track as far as 2 games at most. Yesterday supposedly was a great performance by Walcott yet he still wouldn't make top 3 among our players that game. (Caz, wil, poldi) His other memorable contribution was against the same **** opponent in the cup. What I referred to as snowball games at that post you guys keep referring to. He's always done good on those and went on to be anonymous 6-7 games after a good performance. Like he was with swansea when they closed up beginning of second half. Anyone thinking we'd waste a cf spot in our current formation to someone as generally useless as him against dense organized defenses its clueless imo. A giroud at 50 percent would contribute more.
Every player in our squad is clueless against organised defences, not sure why you're singling him out
So West Ham away, Schalke away, Everton away. He scored in all of those this season. What kind of games were those?
How so? The only thing decent Gervinho's done this season, was his goal against Chelsea. Even that looked sloppy as hell. In that game he did nothing apart from that. Any run Walcott makes in a straight line is more influential than anything Gervinho's done.
He rarely plays. Not only that, he's nowhere as good as he used to be. We're so used to dross nowadays, that Rosicky looks even better than he is.
He was good at schalke, he was Walcott in the rest of those (not a compliment). Aren't his and gervs goals per minute played in non Mickey mouse cups about the same anyway? You can't settle this argument on goals. Final ball thing is getting old as well. gervinho's low crosses into the box after dragging ~5 players with him would get at least 2 goals per game if he was on man utd. Our positioning in the box has been generally woeful. Podolski lunge in the box was a rarity that day, whereas he hasn't been paired with giroud as a cf almost at all.
Walcott needs to join those list of British players signing new contracts! Along with Wilshere he is our best British player!
I think you (in common with a few people) are seeing too much in individual performances and not enough in team performances. Getting the balance right is vital and we sure solved the defense at the start of the season, but we lost that fluency going forward. As Neville pointed out so well, our midfielders stopped making forward runs. I think that was because of our defensive set up. We still have a very good defensive record in the PL. Top 5 or so, yet people are again saying that our defense is shakey again. I think if we get that balance, and it may be with or without Gervinho, I think you will find that this player and that player will start playing better or worse. Judging individuals when the whole team isn't quite clicking, I think is quite tricky. If you only saw Messi playing for Argentina, you might not think he was as good as he is. Similarly, Walcott may only have looked so good because, this time, Cazorla actually used the space he created.
Whether i agree with your point or not, your comment about Messi i have to call you up on! With Argentina he has won a gold medal in 2008 at the olympics. He was involved in every goal at the 2010 World Cup for Argentina. He has taken apart Brazil playinf for Argentina. I once posted a load of information about his international career which completely rubbish the idea that he hasn't done well for Argentina. Just because he hasn't signle handedly carried them to a WC does not mean he does not perform for them. Anyone who watches Messi play for Argentina and can't see how good of a player he is mst be blind!
Sorry, I can't answer right now, I have to go feed the dog. It will take me a while, I haven't got around so well since I tripped over my stick.
You will find that this year I've even asked for Walcott to be played in more games than Wenger has played him in. I specifically said I would start him against Liverpool and others he didn't start against. I'm not saying Walcott won't or can't be a useful element of our team, especially against certain kinds of opposition. I'm just saying if choosing between the two to play in a wide position I'd pick Gervinho 7-8/10 times. As a CF Walcott might be a better option, but is a stupid trade-off in a 4-2-3-1 when you can have the utility of someone like Giroud (or another signing).
