Trying to Solve the Curious Case of Arsenal's Theo Walcott

Anyone watching Arsenal's at times chaotic 3-2 home win over Swansea City on Saturday might have queried who the eye-catching attacking dynamo in the No. 14 shirt was. It couldn't be Theo Walcott, the same player who was barely visible in England's World Cup qualification double against Malta and Slovenia.

This guy was anything but anonymous, scoring twice and generally impressing in every way he didn't during international week.

Of course, it was Walcott, albeit a very different Walcott to the player interim England manager Gareth Southgate could hardly get a decent pass, let alone a goal or an assist, out of for England. This is the conundrum that has come to define Walcott's career. How and why is he so good in some instances and so tragically bad in others?

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Walcott has come to embody the frustrations of the Arsenal support as a whole over the inconsistency of their team. Just like the winger-turned-forward-turned-winger-again, Arsene Wenger's side look like the real deal at times, answering their critics with short bursts of excellence only to wallow in their own shortcomings soon after. This has been the pattern of things for the past few years, maybe even the past decade.

To provide at least some sort of balance, his performances for Arsenal this season have been rather consistent, notching five times in just eight Premier League appearances. He also scored twice in his only Champions League outing, dominating last month's home match against FC Basel. It was mooted at that point that Walcott might finally be becoming the fully fledged player he always promised to be. 

Roy Keane, football's resident hyperbole vampire, tempered such excitement over Walcott. "Listen, the guy needs to relax," said the Irishman when asked if Walcott's double against Basel was evidence of his coming of age as a world-class talent—as per ITV Sport via Callum Davis of the Telegraph. "Try playing well for the next seven, eight, nine months when the real crunch games come. I wouldn't get carried away about Walcott. He's got to keep doing it over the next year or two."

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The former Manchester United midfielder was vindicated in his admittedly harsh rebuttal by the performances Walcott turned in for England against both Malta and Slovenia. Indeed, the gross inconsistencies in his career have been encapsulated by the last month or so. Walcott still has a long way to go before he can claim to have made good on the promise he held as a record-breaking, headline-grabbing teenager.

It's more than 10 years since Walcott was that player, called into Sven-Goran Eriksson's England squad for the 2006 World Cup with just a handful of senior appearances to his name as a Southampton player. And that's an issue for him.

While Walcott has long been able to counter the criticism that frequently comes his way with an argument of his own youth, he no longer has that point to fall back on. Such are his boyish looks and on-the-field exuberance, it's easy to forget that he is now 27. If he doesn't truly fulfil his undeniable potential now, it's unlikely he ever will.

Walcott himself addressed the stark contrast in his performances for Arsenal and England. "It's always difficult when you go from your club to international, there's a different transition at this moment in time with England and you play with different players," he attempted to explain after Saturday's win over Swansea City, as per John Cross of the Mirror. "You have to get used to the way you play all over again and it is difficult to get into the rhythm of things."

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But even against Swansea City, after scoring twice to give Arsenal a commanding lead, Walcott still managed to pass up a golden opportunity with the match at a crucial juncture.

It could have cost the Gunners as Granit Xhaka's sending off gave the visiting Swans fresh impetus in the latter stages of the game. Walcott, despite bagging a brace, could have been culpable for two points dropped. 

So, what is Walcott? Just how important is he to Arsenal? It's difficult to address such a question when his form fluctuates so drastically as a rethink is needed just as it seems enough time might have passed to form a judgement. He is an enigma in the true sense of the term, not the way it seems to have been adopted by television pundits. He is a puzzle nobody has yet figured out how to solve. 

At least Walcott now seems sure of what kind of player he is. Not so long ago he saw himself as a centre-forward, even pushing through the signing of a new contract on the basis that he would be used up front, as per Joe Short of the Express. Of course, Walcott never possessed the inherent finishing instinct to hold down a place as a striker for a club like Arsenal, and that soon become apparent. 

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By his own admission, Walcott is now a winger again. That is where he undoubtedly plays best, and perhaps it should be taken into account that wingers, by trade, are inconsistent players. They operate on the peripheries of the game for long spells, and Walcott is illustrative of that. Maybe we all expect too much of him. 

Nonetheless, the curious case of Walcott is one that will continue to compel and stir opinion. It's a discussion that now transcends his own fans. On the one hand, he is Arsenal's top scorer, and arguably the best player (certainly in an attacking sense), this season. Yet, on the other hand, he remains infuriatingly inconsistent and emblematic of everything that still dogs Arsenal.

For England, Walcott is a peripheral figure and has been for quite some time despite bursting on to the international scene as a 16-year-old. Over the course of his 10-year Three Lions career, he has completed just four matches, with two of those coming against Andorra.

At least for Arsenal, he is still a prospect, although time is running out for him. It had been hoped that Walcott's maturation and fulfilment would be reflective of Arsenal's as a whole this season. Instead, it's more likely that his shortcomings will better embody the Gunners.