Theo Walcott has been selected on a shortlist of five players for September’s Premier League Player of the Month award, but were other Arsenal players more deserved?
The Gunners won each domestic match they played in last month, including a 3-0 win over London rivals Chelsea, which surely puts Arsene Wenger in the race for the Manager of the Month award, but which of our players should be up for the equivalent achievement.
Theo is our only inclusion in the shortlist for the September award, alongside Tottenham’s Heung-Min son, Liverpool’s Adam Lallana, Romelu Lukaku of Everton and City’s Kevin De Bruyne.
The Arsenal forward has been one of our stand-out performers in recent weeks, but would not have been my pick to be Gunners Vitality Player of the Month, nor did he pick up a single Man of the Match award in a league match during September.
Alexis Sanchez picked up two MOTM awards however, for his role in defeating Chelsea and Hull City, with the other MOTM award going to Santi Cazorla, who has also been exceptional this year.
Our defence has also been in fine fettle during the previous month, having conceded only once against Southampton, before denying our bogey-team Chelsea a single goal from our encounter.
Laurent Koscielny is another Arsenal star who may have given us a stronger chance of winning the monthly award, but Theo is the man in the running, so we should get behind him.
The voting has already closed for the Arsenal Vitality Man of the Month Award, which should be revealed in the coming days, which will likely confirm my belief that Theo should not have been our only inclusion for the PL monthly award.
Do you agree that Theo was not our best player of September? Did Alexis deserve to be shortlisted?
Pat J