Tag Archives: lucas perez

Theo Walcott – Not simply the best, but maybe better than all the rest?

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So yesterday’s blog bought out a response from someone on the She Wore Facebook page with regards to Theo Walcott. And that comment has inspired this blog.

The comment was a simple one. That of all of the players mentioned in yesterday’s blog, Walcott was the biggest freeloader.

I responded in my usual matter of fact way; 19 goals last year. Walcott is a better winger than Ox, Welbeck, Perez or Joel Campbell.

The response from someone was as expected. Are you having a laugh???

No, I was not having a laugh. Theo Walcott, whilst he might not be mine or anyone’s full cup of tea, is the better than those others named above.

Theo Walcott knows where the net is. Not too many wide men outscored him last year. Just the top, top players. The likes of Eden Hazard and Alexis Sanchez.

He has scored 104 goals in 381 games for Arsenal. That is a better ratio than Freddie Ljungberg. Add in the goals for Southampton in the Championship, Walcott scores a 1 goal in every 3.7 games.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has always flattered to deceive. He has the ability to beat players for fun, but then will run to the corner flag and stick one into row Z. He is currently loving the celebrity life style, and is acting Hollywood on the pitch.

The simple fact is, he does not have any end product. In his entire career for Arsenal, he has scored just 20 goals. Just one more goal than Theo Walcott scored last season. 20 goals in 196 games. Add the goals in League One for Southampton, he has scored a massive 30 goals in 239 games. That is 1 in 8.

One player who will always frustrate everyone is Danny Welbeck. He has the pace, he has the power, he looks like an elegant gazelle when running. But put him in front of goal and he looks like Bambi.

Twice against Stoke City at the weekend he had the ball with the goal in front of him. Both times he took 3 touches of the ball and failed to get a shot off. You can not take 3 touches of the ball in the box in the Premier League and fail to get a shot off.

Even when he scored against Leicester, he needed 3 touches of the ball. And that was 3 years out, with an open goal.

When we signed Welbeck from Man U, there fans told us exactly what it was we were getting. A player who was class until he had to score. It is crazy to think he has scored just 55 goals in his career, at a ratio of 1 in 4.5.

Then we come to Joel Campbell. Has there ever been a player who has produced so little who ends up so highly rated by many? He certainly falls into the category of “Wenger does not rate him, so lets rate him, because we refuse to agree with Wenger”.

Joel Campbell is now 25 years old. He is no a youngster anymore. He joined Arsenal back in 2011 and has scored just 4 goals for the club.

In his defence, he has spent most of that time on loan throughout Europe. But lets be honest, he has not exactly set the world alight whilst on loan.

He scored a couple of world class goals for Olympiacos back in the day, but it has been a career of averageness.

Let me but it another way, if Arsenal were interested in signing a 25 year old winger from sporting Lisbon who last season struggled to start for them – just 7 league starts, would you be excited, or would you be screaming for Wenger to go?

It would be the later.

During his loan spell at Lisbon last season, he scored 3 goals in all competitions. This bought his career total to 25 goals in 200 games. A fantastic 1 in 8.

Lastly we have Lucas Perez. A player who some feel has not had his chance. The truth is different.

Perez scored against Sutton (it was a cross), Basel, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth. Not exactly giants of the game are they?

Perez is a journeyman. A career that has taken him from Spain to Ukraine, on to Greece, back to Spain, then North London. 4 years playing in average Eastern European leagues did not get him the goals you would expect.

Only twice has he ever hit more than 10 goals in a season. The first was for PAOK in Greece. The second was the year he before he joined Arsenal .He scored 17 goals for Deportivo in 2015/16. That is 2 less than Walcott scored for Arsenal last season.

His record of 1 in 3.4 is superior to Walcott, but he has played in defensively inferior leagues.

If you look at just the last 5 years for Walcott – he was a very slow starter – his goal scoring record is one goal ever 2.5 games.

Theo Walcott might not be what we want, but he is better than what we have. And anyone that disagrees is an idiot. Simple as.

Keenos

Some Arsenal things that are pissing me off

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Lucas Perez Love-In

Arsenal fans really are a joke at times. Support a player who the manager doesn’t fancy. Abuse a player who he does. Stop with the agenda guys.

Top 4 now important?

Fucks me off. For years they said “Arsenal haven’t won a trophy. Top 4 isn’t a trophy”.

Now last season we finished 5th and won the FA Cup its “Arsenal are still scarred from last season after they finished outside the top 4”.

The WSHPBB

The We Should Have Played Barnet Brigade.

This summer we have had a friendly against Borehamwood, and tonight we play Leyton Orient. I wonder if any of those moaning about us not playing Barnet this summer have attended, or will attend, either of these fixtures.

ASW’s

Attention Seeking Wankers. It seems many of the ASW’s have morphed into ITKs this summer. Get over it lads. All of you. Stop pretending you know stuff.

People that moan about youth

Seems there is a new group of people who moan all day that we do not give youth a chance. Then moan when youngsters player in pre-season friendlies.

They will probably also moan when we play youngsters in the League Cup and Europa League.

You can’t have it both ways lads. Can’t moan about not giving youth a chance. Then moan when we do.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Keenos

Stop putting average players on a pedestal

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The current trend at Arsenal seems to be a childish hyping up and rating of players who are set to leave us. The only explanation I can think of is because it is Arsene Wenger no longer fancies the players, so suddenly certain fans start rating him highly. After all, they can not bring themselves to agree with Arsene Wenger.

In the polar opposite direction, and a good place to start this blog, is deadwood.

For years we have moaned about certain players being deadwood. Surplus to requirements. Not fit to wear the shirt. Confused as to why Wenger signed them. More confused as to why they were kept and played so often. And in many of the cases, the criticism was justifiable.

But it seems as soon as we come to decide to move on these players, people start moaning. They never got their chance they complain, even though they were also moaning every time they got their chance.

I have always called it The Michael Carrick Affect – a syndrome caused by rating a player because he is not playing, and the less he plays, the better he gets. Both for England and Manchester United, Carrick got better when he was not playing, to the point where during one absence, people were labelling the average midfielder as world class.

A first example of this happening at Arsenal was with Joel Campbell, and the infamous get out whilst you can Joel at an away game against Swansea.

At the time, Joel Campbell was the poster boy for those that hate everything about Wenger. He was not getting game time, and they demanded that he should. By not playing, he was getting better. They were ignoring the fact that he was average, they felt he should be in the first team.

A few years on from that, people are still saying Campbell never got his chance at Arsenal. Yet in 2015, he played 30 games for the club, scoring 4 goals, and proved that he was not good enough. Interestingly, in the same season, Theo Walcott, a man fans love to have, scored 7 goals in 21 games. Always baffles me when fans rate a player above another player just to suit an agenda.

Even now, people are calling for Joel Campbell to return to Arsenal. This is a player who started just 7 games for Sporting Lisbon in the Portuguese League.

Joel Campbell is not good enough.

Lukas Podolski is another who many labelled as not good enough but as soon as he was loaned out to Inter Milan, the tide of opinion changed. He is now in Japanese football and people are still moaning that he should be at Arsenal.

Labelled as deadwood for many years, Wojciech Szczesny suddenly became everyone’s favourite goal keeper when he joined Juventus as their number 2. Suddenly everyone loved the Pole, who they had spent the last 4 years criticising.

I really did not understand the love in with Wojciech Szczesny.

Lucas Perez is another whose stock has risen dramatically purely because he is not fancied. I see people saying he was not given a chance last season. Yet he was simply not as good as players who started ahead of him.

People act like Lucas Perez was a superstar because he scored a hat trick against Basel, a brace against Nottingham Forest and miss hit a cross which went in against Sutton. OK, he scored a great goal against Bournemouth, but that is one goal, in 21 games.

The joke with Perez is when we signed him, we were competing with the likes of West Ham and Everton for his signature. People commented if he was any good, other top sides would be chasing him. 12 months on, he is being linked with a move away from Arsenal to either Everton or West Ham, and everyone is saying how great a player he is – even though other big sides are not interested.

Another is Calum chambers. 12 months ago it was he has been a flop, we would be lucky to get back half of what we paid for him. Now that we are attracting bids for more than what we paid for him, people are saying we are crazy to sell him.

I have even seen people complain that the very average Mohamad Elneny has not been given a chance.

This situation just highlights the agenda driven opinion of some fans. Arsene Wenger could go and buy Lee Trundle, and those fans would moan we were signing an old, overweight player who is clearly not good enough. But in a year, after he plays just 4 games and we sell him, they would say he was a great player who was never given his chance.

Be consistent in your opinion. Players we are clearing out this summer are just not good enough. Question why we signed them in the first place – criticise Wenger for wasting money on them – but do not question why we are selling them, just as a stick to beat Wenger with.

Keenos