Theo Walcott

sammsky1

Watching Theo Walcott fly down the wing for Le Arse this evening against the scouse. I'm not quite sure of my opinion on him. He obviously has a huge amount of potential and many admirers but I'm left musing 2 questions:

1) Anderson is about the same age and has had about the same amount of exposure. Who is the better player and why?

2) Exactly what was Sven thinking when he took him to Germany for the World Cup in 2006. With the best intentions in the world, he's barely mature/developed enough now to get in the England squad ... so what was Sven's real thinking/agenda? And if he really was the child progidy, then why did he not play a single game?

Feed Me

Anderson is a different player so comparisons are difficult. Anderson is probably better fitted to the physicality of it all, whilst Walcott has needed to be broken in gently.

I have always thought that the Walcott '06 inclusion was a reaction by Sven to those who claimed that he was always too conservative in his squad selections - it had a trump card feeling about it. Problem is, Sven admitted he had never seen the boy play properly and was probably really underwhelmed from what he saw in training.

Count Duckula

Anderson has more potential than Walcott, because I think Anderson could go on to be one of the best players in the world. That's not to say Walcott won't turn into a world class player, though, because I think he will. Just not as world class, if that makes any sense at all.

Saying that, I'd rather have Walcott currently than Anderson currently. Neither of them are as good technically as they will be one day, and neither can do amazing things just yet, but Walcott just has the added factor of sheer pace that Anderson doesn't. He's fast, yes, but Walcott's one of the quickest in the league.

Also, Anderson / Walcott comparisons arn't entirely fair, considering Walcott is eighteen. Anderson's two years older than him. If you really want to compare two like players of the same age, then you compare Anderson and Fabregas. And, sadly, Gay Cesc wins that one hands down.

sammsky1

Fair comment ... and so I ask again... what the fuck was Sven thinking?!

Immature

Are you being serious? Anderson is technically good, His passing is good and can improve, His awareness is brilliant for someon so young and this is andersons first season in a foreign country.

What has Walcott done? Couple of runs in the box using his pace? The kid doesn't even have stamina, he looks as thou he wants to try to hard, while for Anderson it looks natural to him. His touch is okay but his awareness is awful. The kid has no strength what so ever, he purely relize on his pace.

Why would anderson be compared to fabregas? Fabregas is 20 and Anderson is 19, and guess how old Walcott is? He's 19 aswell, shocking isn't it? Anderson is not two years older then Walcott. Walcott was born in 89 while anderson was born in 88, 1 year diffrence mate. Fabregas on the other hand was born in 87, whcic is a two year diffrence between him and walcott.

The only reason why Fabregas wins is because he has the expierence, Once anderson has the expeirience, he will be better. Wait till next season before you compare anderson with fabregas, but if you want to compare performance head to head, then anderson dominated fabregas this season when we played them twice.

sammsky1

Got that very clear! - thanks

But what about Sven?? What was he thinking? He must have had a proper reason... which I just cant locate!

Count Duckula

I might take your posts seriously if you hadn't proved yourself a cretin unnumerable times.

noodlehair

He was doing pretty well until they switched him over to the right

Why?

Immature

He did have a reason, it was something about giving walcott the expierence even if he didn't play. Something about how ronaldo was part of brazil's 1994 and didn't play a single minute.

Richter

Raven Blade

He is a young player with potential. What he does with it is up to him.

AttackingFlair

Anderson is clearly the better player.

enghuei

Theo Walcott epitomizes the modern day English players.

He has got huge amount of natural talent and with incredible pace to burn.

On the other hand he has got no technical abilities to really stand out as a great player. Besides that, he lacks understanding of modern football tactics and is too predictable as he can only go outside to cross. William Gallas was right to criticize him.

IBleedRed

Anderson>walcott

anderson has already broken into brazils team and walcott cant even make it into englands

John the Writer

Pots, kettles.

Utd heap

Not convinced at all by Walcott.
Part of me think he'll just fade away to becoming a speed merchant.

Count Duckula

You really don't like me, do you?

Not that I mind much. (Read: at all)

Alex

Anderson may well be faster than Walcott which is Walcott's best quality, that really says it all

sammsky1

whats the beef betw you two? are is this just some courtship of playing hard to get?

Count Duckula

To be honest I didn't know there was one. He's hardly around much, is he?

On topic: I think Anderson will be better, but I'd currently rather have Walcott. Not least because he's English.

Alex

Why, he wouldn't get in the first team at all here

Count Duckula

You sure of that? I reckon he'd get a fair few run outs, just not in the important games. And he'd give us that extra attacker.

As I said, I think Anderson will be a fantastic player, but he is a touch overrated by many on here at the moment. How many assists does he have this season? Not many, I'd wager. And he's not scored either. For an attacking player of his "brilliance", that's not a very good return.

marcus agrippa

what horse-manure.

pace? fucking pace? - we hardly need that much pace with the likes of Ronaldo and Nani in the team. Anderson's passing and composure on the ball is superior, and these are the ingredients we need in central areas to release our pacy players.

and Anderson's turn of speed is great. remember his through-ball to himself to beat two Pompey players? - hardly a slacker that one. pace? - fuck off!

jesus christ! - sorry if i sound like GusHiddink, but the mind boggles at the poor reasoning of some on here.

Sonny Feehan

I don't think there is a proper reason. England did not have the depth to bring along a youngster for experience a la Brazil and Ronaldo, it was an insult to other experienced Premiership strikers who will probably never get another chance to play in the World Cup, and in the final analysis it did neither player nor country any good. It is the most amazing selection I have ever seen and I have never seen Sven's justification for it. Unless he was just so pissed off at his treatment by the English press that he just didn't give a fuck

Sylar

..is better than Eboue.

Saying that, Walcott should be playing up front for those lot.

AttackingFlair

Manchester United Goal Scorers 07/08

Looks like one more than Carrick and one less than Scholes? Also unfair to expect goals from a midfielder who has played from a deep position this season... his first season. Compare him to our other central midfielders and it's not like the goal return is great anywhere. There's different expectations for our CMs.

Bape

I'm not quite sure why Walcott is being compared to Anderson to be honest, they're different players that play in different positions. Walcotts natural position is a striker where as Anderson is a midfielder. If anything, Walcott should be compared to Babel, both prefer to play up front but are used on the wings as they're not mature enough to play as a striker for their clubs. Anderson is obviously the better player right now, the only attributes Walcott has over Anderson is better finishing and more pace. Anderson has unbelivable acceleration though, not to mention being superior in most other areas...passing, vision, strength, defensively, technique etc

Alex

Anderson has played in the middle of the pitch in all of United's big matches this year, enough said

sammsky1

I chose Anderson purely because they are of similar age ... and so see if Walcott was developing as he should given that 2 years ago, he was the prodigal son of Team England. So Anderson is a useful barometer ... as is the 19 year old Babel

agree ... and it was never properly discussed in the media post the tournament as everyone was hell bent on trashing ronaldo and englands performance. I just want to know what SVEN was thinking!

Count Duckula

That's true. And SAF does know a little bit more than me about football, so perhaps he brings something special to the table that I'm missing.

That said, I'd still would have loved to have had Walcott at United.

JazzG

Thought he had a decent game today and in recent weeks has been very good for us. He has had some issues which have taken longer than normal to sort out but is progressing well. People expected too much too soon from him, his shoulder problem put him back almost a year imo and during the time he had a shoulder problem it really dented and hurt his confidence which took a while to recover. He is getting stronger by the year and he still will become much stronger and then we will really see how good he is, definitely has what it takes to make it and in 2-3 years time think he will be a top player if he continues to progress at this rate.

Odd to compare him to Anderson, Anderson had a great start to his Man utd career but has looked a bit off the colour recently, these things happen when you are young though. Anderson is quite strong for someone so young which has helped him settle in so quickly in this league.

There is no way Anderson is faster than him, Anderson is quick but Theo is possibly the fastest player I've seen at Arsenal. Probably faster than Henry and Overmars.

Christofaux

Denilson has broken into the team as well... and he doesnt get a run at Arsenal.

John the Writer

I might not be around much, but I've seen enough to find it ironic that you refer to someone else as cretinous.

Wes

Theo Walcott will never be a big player. He's a sprinter, not a footballer.

Suedesi

Thought he had a good game.

Even tho Adebayoor scored, I still think he plays like a headless chicken (which means I'll have an egg on my face when scores at OT)

Bendtner was... well it's been covered on other threads sufficiently.

Babel was anonymous. I've never rated him, but tonight he was abject.

Impressed by F.Aurelio, he did hold the line well. He was pretty crap against us mind.

IBleedRed

The fact of the matter is
Anderson son son son shits on fabregas

and cesc always gets a start over theo

Merman

He is overrated. Anderson is far more talented.

RedLars

Anderson was born in April, 1988, and Walcott was born in March 1989. If my calculator serves me right, this means that they're less than a year apart.

Have you been using Essien's calculator?

Alex

Young Hoyte is faster than him I believe. Watch Anderson sometimes, he is not only quick he has blazing speed with or without the ball, add to it he is about 1,000,000 times stronger than him on the ball than Walcott

Alex

Because he is nowhere near as good as Anderson.....