Long serving Gunners player Theo Walcott is facing an important career quagmire at the moment.
He joined the club in 2006 and has established a decent profile. However, he has rarely managed to match expectations for over a decade.
At 28 years, he is not a sure starter in the Arsenal set-up anymore and with the loss of his spot in the England national side, he is desperate for regular game time. He joined the Three Lions at 17 years when Sven Goran-Eriksson handed him his debut. He wants to remain in the team under Gareth Southgate but the coach demands regular football at the highest level.
Walcott for the 2017/18 season could be receiving about 140,000 per week to sit on the bench and feature in cup games. Other clubs where he could get more game time cannot match the money Arsenal are coughing out weekly.
Since his teenage days, Walcott at best has an average of 15 Premier League starts a season. The question of consistency has followed him all his career. He is at the peak of his market value and a defining point in his career.
He started the last season very good, scoring 11 goals by December. He could only add eight to make his best tally at the end of the season. If not poor form, injury or a drop in pecking order would surely hinder the player from growing past a certain level every year!
With Wenger having options in Alexis Sanchez – who seems like he would stay this term, Alex Lacazette, Alex Oxlade-chamberlain, Alex Iwobi, and Danny Welbeck, it is a gloomy future for Walcott. Thomas Lemar or RiyadMahrez might even join.
While Walcot might want to play the usual rhetoric of fighting for his shirt, it is not entirely a bad option to move elsewhere and salvage the rest of his career before he crosses the big 30.
