I am sure that the debate will be raging just as much as ever among Arsenal fans about the merits of our England international star Theo Walcott and whether or not he can provide the Gunners with a good enough option for the centre forward position. Arsene Wenger´s comments after the game reported on the Arsenal website suggested that the boss still has great belief that he can.
Wenger said, “He scored a great goal because you needed technical quality to score and timing in the finish. It is good Giroud came on scored as well.
“He has chances. He can be a prolific goalscorer. When you come out of the game and look at the amount of chances he scored. The bigger the belief he has to score the more he will score. But he gets in good situations.”
During the Premier League win over Stoke City on Saturday, Walcott came up with more ammunition for both sides of the argument. He missed a couple of very good chances and sometimes seemed to lack the killer instincts of a natural goalscorer, but the one he did take was brilliant and one that not many other strikers would have scored.
His critics will say that a top class striker should always put away chances like the rebound from Alexis´ header and his own header from a pinpoint cross. I agree, to be fair, but I also think that he would usually be taking those and with a run of games, he will.
It is clear that our two strikers are very different and it appears that Wenger intends to rotate them and use them depending on the opposition and the situation during the game. With very little time between games for the next month, Arsenal do need both centre forwards to fire, but are they enough and will Theo provide sufficient competition and cover for Giroud?