What will Walcott actually achieve this season?

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After a little bit of speculation, it seems that Theo Walcott’s career is not going to take yet another drastic turn in its brief existence as a loan move to West Brom was denied by both his agent and club.

It would have capped quite a year for Arsenal’s Henry protege. He set records as the first player to play for Southampton without getting his first pube, earned himself a transfer to Arsenal amid much attention from the likes of Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester United, and then won first prize at a local raffle to spend his summer holiday touring Germany with the England team.

But for all of that, we’ve yet to actually see much football from the young lad at the top level. None, to be exact. Given how Wenger has handled Cesc and the other youngsters you figure that the second half of last season was to allow Theo to get settled and find his feet with the club, with a view to getting some first team action this year. And if Fabregas, Eboue, Diaby, Flamini et al are anything to go by we could be in for a treat.

But as good as Wenger is at developing talent, there’s always the chance that he could go the way of Reyes. Butchered, bullied and battered into submission, probably mainly from Darren Bent and Jermaine Defoe tracking all the way back to their box to scythe him down at the ankles.

So what will young Theo achieve this year?

Here are a couple of milestones we’ve got our money on:

– First appearance, goal (assist Henry), assist (to Henry) for Arsenal
– First ‘simulation’ scandal
– First bid from Real Madrid (turned down, although he wouldn’t rule it out in the future)
– First appearance and poor performance as part of a crap England team led by McClaren, and subsequent bollocking from media and fans.