There seems to be allot of negative hyperbole on Arsenal forums so I thought I'd stick my head in here and give you my view of this transfer as a more balanced Gooner. He's overly disliked because he's a limited played and when he isn't scoring/assisting he's pretty much invisible. The good news is he scores and assists quite allot. He also was out of form after a long term injury in 2014 and not scoring and was hated after he jumped out of the way of a 50-50 challenge a couple of years ago, which I think was down to fear of re-injury. But he did get back to scoring 19 goals last season in all comps and his goals/assists per game over the last 18months is back to being pretty high.
Walcott's strength is his off the ball movement, which is elite, he's not just quick he makes really intelligent runs and his 1-2s can be effective. He's all the better in open games where he can run in behind and over the years he has scored in the big games. We part put this down to him having space to run into, which as a possesion side he can't use so much against smaller teams. Many of us always thought he maybe much more effective at a mid-table team where he would have more space to run into.
Technically he isn't a brilliant player but he's more than a pace merchant in that his finishing and passing is intelligent, he does get his head up and makes good decision. As Theo has got older he's dribbled less with the ball and I wonder if he's lost some pace. I'm not sure if that's conserving energy to make runs in behind or instruction. It will be interesting to see if he's asked to dribble more by Big Sam.
Overall he should come in and get you a good number of goals and assists but won't be a player who dominates games or makes chances out of nothing. He'll be 29 in March but hasn't been over played in recent times so should be fresh and he's professional and always in good shape. I'd imagine he'll do better playing week in week out in a different set up. I think it'll be a decent signing for 20m in this market and it'll be interesting to see if he sinks or swims.
