Arsenal: Grading Theo Walcott's Performance so Far This Season

It's difficult to remember at times that Theo Walcott, a consistent member of Arsenal's first team for nearly six seasons now, is still only 22 years old (he turns 23 in March.)

Since moving from Southampton to Arsenal in the winter of 2006 on a £5 million transfer (it would eventually rise to £9.1 million after a number of performance incentives were met), Walcott has made 137 appearances for the club, notching 21 goals.

For a man who professes a desire to exert a Henry-like influence in attack (it didn't help the expectations when Walcott assumed Henry's No. 14 when the Frenchman left for Barcelona in 2007, although he did wait until the 2008-09 season to begin wearing it), he hasn't quite shown the kind of chops needed to play that position.

Although maybe it's fairest to say that he hasn't quite been given the chance.

Walcott has played on the right wing for Arsenal ever since arriving, and given Arsene Wenger's reluctance to give him a shout in the central forward position, it looks likely that he'll remain at that post. In comparison, Henry was paired with Dennis Bergkamp up front upon his arrival with the club in 1999.

Walcott's career with the Gunners has seen flashes of brilliance: the 80-yard run against Liverpool in the classic '08 Champions League quarterfinal at Anfield, the first-half hat-trick against Blackpool in August 2010 (Walcott had four goals in his first three EPL matches that season before succumbing to an ankle injury while away on duty with England in September.), interspersed with biting criticism and pervasive feelings that Walcott has never, and perhaps never will, become the kind of transcendent talent we all hoped he might one day be.

Flash-forward to this season. At this juncture, Walcott has appeared in 26 matches for Arsenal (all competitions) and has scored six goals and notched eight assists. Not too shabby for a winger—Walcott has less goals than Manchester United's Nani (eight through 26 games), but he is ahead of Antonio Valencia, who also has four, though the Colombian has played in four fewer games.

Walcott's eight assists are competitive with those two's production, however. Nani has nine; Valencia has 10.

As always seems to be the case with Walcott, he has both wowed and wilted, but the latter always seems to supersede the former from the fans' and media's perspective.

Yet no Gunner was more integral to Arsenal's passage through the August Champions League playoff into the group stages, after all—two of Walcott's six goals this season came in Arsenal's two wins over Udinese Calcio. (Arsenal would pass through 3-1 on aggregate.)

His delivery in the final third (passing and crossing) has become incrementally better during his time with Arsenal, and you're likely to hear match commentators presiding over Arsenal games praising Walcott for his intelligent runs in behind and across the opposing defense.

Michael Cox made that point for ESPN in an article last November, following Arsenal's match against Fulham. Cox praised Walcott's positioning and contribution throughout that match and also through most of the season to date.

There have certainly been highlights. The Udinese matches were a testament to Walcott's ability to repond oui at the most important of occasions, and his goal against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, where he forced himself back onto his feet after tripping in the final third before dispatching a dipping shot past Petr Cech, was a perfect lesson in stick-to-itiveness.

Cox also makes the point that many within the media establishment seem not to want the young man to succeed. His most impressive performances to date (the hat-trick for England against Croatia, the hat-trick for Arsenal against Blackpool) are often met with tepid applause, if that. Were Walcott to, say, score a goal with the same kind of acrobatic genius that Wayne Rooney showed against Manchester City last season with that unforgettable overhead kick, would he receive the same endless praise?

Or would it be considered a one-off? I think the latter.

Perhaps Cox said it best when he noted that Walcott's inclusion in Sven Goran Eriksson's 23-man squad for the 2006 World Cup may have been the worst thing to ever happen to him. At just 17 years of age—the youngest ever player to be named to the World Cup in the history of the English national team—an inordinate amount of pressure and expectation was heaped upon Walcott's shoulders that would have broken a lesser individual.

He's dealt with the cat-calls about his intelligence in the final third quite impressively, I think. Walcott has never once shot his mouth off in angst about the almost-incessant criticism he seems to attract. That that ad hominem argument fails to account for the marked improvements Walcott has made as a footballer, many of which we have seen this season.

Eight assists is nothing short of impressive—in fact, it leads the team at this juncture. Wenger has said before that in his 4-2-3-1 system, the two wingers' first responsibility is to deliver service to the lone striker; goals are secondary from a production standpoint.

Walcott echoed that tenet in an interview for Arsenal.com after last weekend's 7-1 romp against Blackburn, a game in which he'd provided three assists (two for Robin Van Persie, one for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain).

Said Walcott, "Creating assists is my main role [for the club]." It's something he's done quite well, though decidedly without much recognition, this season.

He has the support of his teammates, even amidst the most biting criticism about his lack of goal-scoring. Van Persie believes that Walcott can score 20 goals a season; high praise from a man who knows his way around the net and isn't prone to flights of hyperbolic fancy.

Even opponents have diagnosed his threat. After seeing Walcott provide the spark to bring Arsenal back to a 2-2 draw in the first leg of the 2010 Champions League quarterfinals at the Emirates, Lionel Messi hailed the England international as "a player Barcelona were truly worried of" ahead of the two teams' 2011 CL clash.

Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola said Walcott was "quicker than his entire team." While that may not designate a player's actual quality, what is certain is that Walcott proved the difference in that 2010 quarterfinal just as he'd done against Liverpool two years earlier.

Again, the theme of coming up big when his team needed him the most fits perfectly here.

Instead of denigrating Walcott for what he should be giving the team, perhaps it's best to take a step back at times and remember just how far he has come and just how much he does contribute—a significant amount.

Along with right-back Bacary Sagna, no one has improved his delivery in the final third more during the past several seasons; yet that distinction is lost amid the kerfuffle that ensues during Walcott's poorer performances.

Pointing to statistics is a sore subject for many Arsenal fans, who still remember Wenger fastidiously championing Andrei Arshavin's worth to the club through that very argument. But it must be noted that Walcott has been one of the most consistent providers for the club this season.

He was overshadowed by Oxlade-Chamberlain against Manchester United last month (in one game, the Ox came to within two-thirds of Walcott's goal output this season) and appears to have fallen into the shadow of his fellow former Southampton man, who is enjoying a meteoric rise to stardom at this time.

But he hasn't appeared sullen or sulky about it, instead electing to praise his teammate. It's the same thing he's done with the comments about his intelligence. He has been a man about it.

Instead of stewing in feelings that he wasn't appreciated enough, Walcott came out against Blackburn and delivered exactly the kind of performance Arsenal needed from one of its best players.

You can't ask for anything more than that.