A Myth is quite simply “a widely held but false belief or idea.”
Positivistas, how many of you, like me, first daily instinct during the transfer window is to reach for whatever internet device is at hand to check if there is any new transfer story affecting our great club? Yup, I see many of you shaking your heads in agreement. But I know there is an unrepentant few who are reacting with disgust to such heresy, appalled that there is a majority who weakly submit to the twice yearly season of rumor-mongering, click-baiting and outright lying by all segments of the sporting media.
Despite my admiration for those of us who can resist the temptation to not religiously scan twitter and the lying mainstream media for transfer news, the fact is the buying and selling of players has a powerful hold over many supporters and cannot be ignored. Even yours truly was briefly caught-up in the madness last weekend after EuroSport-France proclaimed boldly that Leicester’s Riyad Mahrez decides to join Arsenal, €50m move close. So much so I became a member of scouting twitterati hanging onto every ball Mahrez kicked in Leicester’s friendly with Celtics that Saturday morning (EST). Predictably, nothing came of the transfer. Less than one-week later it became apparent this was a big con-job by either Mahrez or his agent to get a big wage increase from Leicester, using the same leverage as his team-mate Jaime Vardy; i.e. being publicly linked with Arsenal. Lesson learnt anybody?
So why does transfers have such a big hold on our thinking despite clear and repetitive evidence that transfers are no guarantee to footballing success? Is it because the facts are not compelling? How more compelling can that major 2013 study by Nick Harris of Sporting Intelligence for the Arsenal Supporters Trust, of all the people, when he provided 13 years of data to come to the conclusion that:
“Wenger is telling the truth when he speaks, often, about wanting value in the transfer market, and wanting to buy players when they are better than he already has. Because he knows, from that 2005-06 season, and from the following season and a few others, that all business is not necessarily good business. And too much business can have a negative impact on the team, if selection becomes too ‘unstable’, which we can show, in a general sense, for Arsenal and key rivals, is a bad thing.”
He ranked the ‘big six’ in the Premier League in order of their total net spending on transfers plus wages combined between 2000 and 2012 over the 13 years in question. Chelsea spent most, with £2.078 billion, then Man Utd on £1.43bn, then City with £1.4bn, then Liverpool with £1.3bn then Arsenal with £1.1bn and Spurs on £777 million.
Chelsea did not do better than their resources in any year, under-performing against their wage bill eight times and doing only as well as expected four times.
United did better seven times, worse three times and as well as expected twice.
Manchester City performed better once: when finishing ninth in 2002-03 when wages said they should have finished 10th. They have otherwise under-performed apart from the title-winning season when they did as well as expected.
Liverpool did better than expected four times in the period, worse four times and as expected four times.
ARSENAL out-performed their wage spending seven times, did as well as expected three times, and under-performed in 2005-06 and 2006-07. We’ll come back to that – but it’s better than any rival.
Tottenham did better than their wage bill six times – and worse six times, in the period under review.
Nothing since 2013 in the PL has changed from my observation. To the contrary Harris’ findings have been reinforced by the dramatic results of the last season. At the end of the 2015 summer window the following was the top-ranking spenders vs eventual league position:
| CLUB | £MILLION | POSITION |
| Man City | 88.06 | 3rd |
| Liverpool | 77.02 | 8th |
| Man United | 68.95 | 5th |
| Villa | 45.43 | 20th |
| Chelsea | 40.60 | 10th |
| Newcastle | 39.80 | 18th |
| Southampton | 23.80 | 6th |
| West Brom | 22.75 | 15th |
| Leicester | 21.84 | 1st |
| Crystal Palace | 16.73 | 14th |
| Arsenal | 9.80 | 2nd |
Despite Leicester breaking conventional wisdom and proving that one can win the League without breaking transfer records, the usual suspects have been screaming murder and throwing childish tantrums because Ivan Gazidis recently used two major media opportunities to pour cold-water on expectations that the club will “show ambition” in the transfer market. The latest was an interview with no less than the New York Times when he stated:
“We would not be successful if we simply went out into the transfer market and tried to outgun our competitors. We’re run in a self-sustaining way, and a way that we believe in, because we believe it gives us certainty for the future, and enables us to plan our future with confidence. That means we can’t afford to make huge mistakes in the transfer market. We can’t afford to outgun competitors that have far more money to splurge on transfer fees than we do. So we have to be very careful, very selective about how we do things.”
My fellow blogger and friend Stew Black has dismissed this statement as simply “public relations” but I would suggest that for the CEO of the club to make similar statements within a week to both ESPN and the Times, major media outlets in their own right, is a significant message to the fans and other key constituencies. Gazidis was fully aware that there was a major kerfuffle after his initial round of cold water. Even Wenger was forced to comment after the Lens game that the CEO was not ruling out a big transfer if the right player became available. Less than one week later Gazidis repeated the same mantra almost word for word. Outside of Stan this is the voice of the Board of Directors, we ignore him at our peril.
So despite the compelling weight of facts and figures and the admonishments of the CEO, bloggers and tweeters continue to believe that the club is showing no ambition or that Wenger is dithering in the transfer market. It would seem to me that if the club does not find the right player, many are in for a rude awakening.
Sooner or later myths must confront reality.
Positively Arsenal 
chivas just took off their number 297, yeah squad numbers are crazy
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WENGER ON ALEXIS AND RAMSEY RETURNS
Aaron Ramsey and Alexis are expected to return when our pre-season schedule continues in Scandinavia.
Arsène Wenger takes the squad to Norway and Sweden to face Viking and Manchester City – and the US tour party will be replenished by some familiar faces.
“Not all of [the international players will be back],” the manager told Arsenal Player. “But Ramsey will be involved, Sanchez will be involved.
“The latest players coming back will not be involved, that’s Ozil, Giroud and Koscielny, they are the last ones and I don’t think they will be involved on the tour on Thursday, but all the others will.”
No one has impressed more than Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain this summer and the boss is cautiously optimistic about the England star following two goals in three pre-season games.
“This is a very important season for Alex,” he said. “He was out for a very long time, I’m cautious with him at the moment but he’s getting better in every game and that’s good to see.”
Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160801/wenger-on-alexis-and-ramsey-returns?#YQEiWeFV2QE5L3oh.99
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wenger confirmed that wilshere missed the chivas game due to a kneecap injury, which he hopes is not too serious
Wenger: ‘It’s a slight patella problem but I think he should be with us on tour on Thursday (for games against Viking and Manchester City). I hope he will, yes.’
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Very impressed so far with pre-season form Xhaka, Holding, The Ox, Iwobi, Monreal and Elnenny. Still think we are short on goal scorers.
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Wenger said Cazorla is a bit behind in fitness, and will not be fully up to speed for the liverpool game, but should be a few games into the season.
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yeah shotta its been a good pre-season so far, I’ve not been impressed by iwobi so far, he has ran around a lot, bit like campbell, but neither have been near their best. Elneny, Chambers, Bielik, Holding, Xhaka and Oxlade-Chamberlain have all impressed me. Coquelin has been a big bag of energy and tackles, and looks like he is trying his best to show he should be in the team. Akpom with two goals has had end product even if he has looked a bit off his game too. Walcott looks well down on confidence, and really needs a couple of goals, but it is a catch 22 situation, needs confidence to get his goals, and needs goals to get his confidence.
In the two games in the USA, our fullbacks in the first half have not ventured forward, while the second half fullbacks have almost overdid going forward.
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Superb article Shotta.
I haven’t been here for days so I’ve a lot of catching up to do, inc. comments on this piece. I have to say, I choose not to look at transfer stuff/sites, cos I think it’s all lies. I pick up the odd rumour from these pages – think about them for 30 secs then pretend to forget about them. I’ll be interested to catch up on the comments here. I’ll not expect oodles of bile. Phew. Thank you.
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so who is the CB, ‘must have he’ signing we want. Is it Mustafi, lots of conflicting reports on our chances of signing him, and with Wenger saying he wants an experience defender signed, the media have gone into full on guessing games, and linked us with both Swansea CB’s and although dismissed by most gooners, Johnny Evans might very well be exactly what we need. 28, 6ft2in, vastly experienced in BPL, had a fine season with WBA last season, was a regular in the last man utd team to win the title (23 of the 38 games), he played 198 games for utd, sir red nose always rated him, Wenger has spoken in the past of how good he thought the lad was. Evans alongside Koscielny could be a very good partnership. Of course for some, he would not cost enough, he would not be fashionable enough, and he would be dismissed as a Mikel Silvertre type signing. I rate Evans as a much more suitable player than Williams of Swansea, and would be happy if we sign him.
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Lovely goal by the Ox, the boy brimming with confidence.
Please, please, please stay fit son.
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ITV Football @itvfootball 2h2 hours ago
Watch Arsenal take on Viking at 7.15pm on Friday evening LIVE on @itv4
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well I’ve just seen a twitter exchange that sums up the malcontents,
in regard to Rob Holding, one ‘supporter’ just stated “the sooner the better he fails”, then we can get in a “£50M” CB.
transfer window has become a dick swinging contest, there is not doubt about it,
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A statement by the Algerian Football Federation, “The International Federation of Football Association (FIFA) has officially qualified the Arsenal player Ismael Bennacer (18) to play for the representative teams of Algeria (National Team A).”
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The performance last night of AOC (as well as Holding, Iwobi, and Bielek) underlines the importance of developing players in contrast to depending on expensive transfers who are no better than the existing players or whose arrival simply destabilizes the morale and ethic of the team. According to AW:
“Power, penetration – he has it all, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. It’s difficult [to find] what he doesn’t have – that’s why I would like him to get to the level he can go to.
“Maybe he doesn’t completely believe himself how good he can be and that’s the final step for him.”
Ironically, on twitter the the wobs and transfer addicts were in meltdown every time AOC powered his way past a number of Chivas defenders mourning it meant Wenger would have no reason to sign Mahrez. Truly the transfer myths are alive and well.
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well shotta what do you expect when even ex afc players like ray parlour comes out with tripe like afc should buy some of the 9 players man utd are willing to sell, as afc “don’t bring enough of our own through”. when this is the level of pundits ‘informing’ and helping to form fans views, how can we not expect for the sheep to go baa baa baa buy buy buy him and him and him.
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Arsenal U19 v Golden Arrows: Jonkerman, Tutu, Pileas, Da Graca, Bola, Dragomir, Mavididi, Nelson, Sheaf, Mcguane, Da Silva
Sub: Keto, Omole, Tella, Smith-Rowe, Willock, Nketiah, Mourgos, Allende, Malen
Nelson has put afc ahead after 8 minutes
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Jonkerman in goals is a new name on the arsenal team sheet, it may be thom jonkerman who is/was part of the nike academy team, 18 years old dutch lad.
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Durban_U19 @Durban_U19 3m3 minutes ago
70′ Sub for @Arsenal Malen in for Dragomir and Mourgos in for Da Silva
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Durban_U19 @Durban_U19 37s38 seconds ago
79′ Sub for @Arsenal Mavididi off and Nketiah in
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Golden Arrows FC @goldenarrowsfc1 1m1 minute ago
Free kick Arrows just 20m from the box. Taken, deflects of an Arsenal player(DaGraca). GOAL! Golden Arrows 1-1 @Arsenal #DurbanU19
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Durban_U19 @Durban_U19 2m2 minutes ago
83′ @goldenarrowsfc1 Celebration was short lived as Mourgos secures a second goal for @Arsenal . Score 2-1 in favour of @Arsenal #DurbanU19
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Golden Arrows FC @goldenarrowsfc1 1m1 minute ago
And thats the game. @Arsenal have beaten Golden Arrows 2 goals to 1 in their final pool fixture #DurbanU19
Arsenal through to the semi final
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Lets remind us all again of all the Twitter experts who demanded Arsenal sell AOC at the end of last season, if not halfway through last season.
Wenger sees something very special in the Ox, if our fellow fans can’t see it, who’s expert opinion should we believe?
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Well. Considering that Chambo had achieved three times as much as the glimmering Sterling in a third of the appearances (for the national team, when the same age), I’m happy le gaffer is sticking with the heir of King Gazza (on the pitch) and not Shaun-Wright Phillips III (on and off the pitch – Bradley was the second Wright-Phillips)
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the goalie for the U19’s today was indeed Thom Jonkerman, I don’t know if he has signed for AFC or is on trial, or just here short term due to Virginia being away with the Portugal Olympic team. Jonkerman is/was part of the Nike Academy. Arsenal play friendlies against them every year.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/BIcarREgkz-/?taken-by=thomjonkerman
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Jonkerman was reported to have joined the nike academy only last month, ffrom Dordrecht, the club AFC loaned Glen Kamara to last week.
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AST @AST_arsenal 4h4 hours ago
Well done to Arsenal for concession prices for away fans at Emirates – Seniors are £20 for cat A, £16 for cat B, and £11.25 for cat C
bound to be headline news in the sport pages tomorrow
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DC
They are the very same experts (with Expert untraceable multiple I.P.s) who spent years arguing with Frank about RVP, before they spent years moaning about RVP leaving.
With fans like these…
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Wenger quote from the day he was presented as Arsenal manager “the turmoil was created around the club, not from inside the club”. Has anything changed, still its those outside of the club that cause the turmoil, those inside the club still know what they are doing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MloB9C88N0o
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had to laugh at BBC 5 live giving air time to chris sutton, to blast wenger and the afc board for “letting the afc fans down”, based on the notion that we have not spent enough, not shown enough ambition in the transfer window. Imagine the BBC thinking that Chris Sutton is the person to give anyone advice about finances, this is the same Chris Sutton who was declared bankrupt only two years ago. Just before he took a job at the BBC to spout his wisdom. It must have been all his years of top flight management that got him the gig.
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DC and Fins: Who do you think is mostly behind this nonsense about AOC, sowing doubts about his future, legitimizing talk of his sale? Take a look at the following quote from a widely supported blog:
“I think this is a big season for him. He’s into the final two years of his contract, and we’re at a point where he’s playing for a new deal. I don’t think there’d be any shortage of takers if things didn’t work out for him and he moved on next summer, but would they be the very top echelon of Premier League clubs? It’d be great to see him really kick on this season, we’ve had glimpses of what he can do, but never seen it on a consistent basis. Fingers crossed.”
Doesn’t that remind you of the same nonsense that Frank and ourselves had to aggressively repudiate 6-7 years ago when Arsene advocated the transformation of RVP from a winger to a central striker. I remember well Dutchman had repeated problems with injuries and the same uber blogger was happy to mock him as having ankles made of glass. His minions would gleefully repeat the nonsense legitimizing the doom-mongering and vilification of Wenger for not going into the market and spending big on a central striker. As Fins observed, this same writer and his lemmings went into virtual panic mode three years later when RVP pissed on the club and those of us who supported him through thick and thin, by going over to Man Utd unable to resist the riches on offer by Ferguson.
Do you guys willing to guess who this blogger is?
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
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you know all this “that is the modern transfer world reality and Arsenal refuse to get involved” that the malcontents like to spout, over massive transfer fees. Well in the history of the game there has been around 50 transfers of £30M or over, and guess what. Arsenal have made 3 of them, Ozil, Alexis and Xhaka. by the way liverpool have also made 3 of them Carroll, Benteke and Mane. Man Utd have made 5, Man City 5(with Sane joining today), Chelsea only have 2.
PSG have 6, Monaco 2, Real Madrid 10, Barcelona 3, Juventus have 1. There has been 3 to Chinese clubs.
Bayern Munich have not made a £30M signing.
so the transfer reality is that 4 clubs have between them accounted for over half of all transfers of £30M and above – Real Madrid 10, Man Utd 5, Man City 5 and PSG 6. Now that is the transfer reality, 4 of the richest clubs in the world have a monopoly on the biggest transfer fees paid.
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the info in my last post was taken from wiki list of most expensive transfers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_association_football_transfers
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correction Juventus have 3 on the list,
AC, Inter have 1 each and Lazio has 2.
no german club on the list.
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Rich Arrowsmith@RichArrowsmith
If Arsenal fans don’t sing “All we hear is, Radio Xhaka, Radio Giroud, Radio Xhaka, All we hear is…” this season, they should be relegated
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former arsenal academy player chuks aneke has signed for mk dons
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a very good interview with Andires Jonker, about all things Hale End and Academy, and the journey to the first team
http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/20160728/andries-jonker?
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Shotts who can forget the base glee in palpable evidence when the above writer poured his scorn upon the obviously unwell Adeybayor who we all know was a punt/third choice striker/the big lump option who came to the club with a reputation for being unwell, a punt that was sold for a cool £20M profit, a player whose current wages are probably still being paid for by Tottenham haha!
Of course it took until Giroud arrived for a club that doesn’t have a laundromatic chequebook to replace the above player who retired after he left AFC (and started a laundry business!).
Nope. These lying toads first of all have been pretending that OG, the big lump, was RVP’s replacement and not Adebayor’s. Which is credible for a football expert eh? Fucking risible bollocks, constantly, with fuck all relation to the actual footy; England’s most effective striker Welbeck is obviously the all rounder replacement for the all rounder RVP, injuries included unfortunately (I have no trouble writing the above whilst acknowledging that the equally unlucky Sturrdige is the better finisher).
The more they jibber and jabber the less it appears they have to say about the actual Football.
I’m trying to be polite here.
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Fins@ 2:26pm – I was going to mention the abhorrent treatment the Sage of Dublin and his mindless minions extended to Adebayor from the 1st day he was brought to the club. But felt it would distract from my main point which is the insidious attempt to undermine confidence in AOC, a prodigious talent with limitless potential. The Dublinite was successful with his anti-Ade campaign because the Togolese acted like a cunt after his 30 goal season, thinking of himself as Beyonce. But since Adebayor, apart from RVP, we have never had anyone come remotely close to 30 goals per season. Yet these idiots used to write shit that anybody can score a bucket full of goals with assists from our midfield. What I remember most was the coded racist language used against the African. Any wonder Arsenal fans easily spout that racist meme aboat Ade and elephants and mother being a whore.
No wonder we had the blog wars. Thank God for Frank who exposed them left, right and center as naked opportunists who jumped on the Arsenal bandwagon due to the genius of Arsene Wenger. As Frank frequently pointed out, from his personal experience at Highbury, none of this new generation of bloggers and parasites were supporting the club in the pre Wenger years.
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Well, there may have been a tiny piece of me that thought the footy had shut down – following the euros. I certainly have had a holiday from it all. I think where I’ve fooled myself thoroughly is by remaining in total denial (for a couple of weeks). This is Denial suggesting that if I’m ignoring the anti Arsenal crapfest, surely the bass-blog-tards would have a little holiday too. Fool me 6 times and I’m a ****!, surely.
Anyways, as much as the crapfest upsets me, I’m glad to see fins, edu and Shotta beautifully articulating the ongoing destabilisation attempts made by a bunch of …….
Thank you for keeping up with it all and publishing here at PA, with context.
(My punishment for not keeping up is that I missed the last match, having read it was on terrestrial tv – the day after it happened.
Note to self: Arsenal on ITV4 Fri 15th vs some Vikings. Prog starts 19:15. Any mates reading, I’m coming round to watch. Put kids to bed, etc. Cheers).
(And don’t piss off on holiday to avoid me).
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Rosicky is back at Arsenal. he is getting treatment on his thigh injury as he attempts to get fit to join another club
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it seems Walcott has realized he is not cut out for the lone striker role, and now wants to fight for his place wide right
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/theo-walcott-ready-give-up-8546425?
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Notts County don’t think much of their latest signing
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Ospina denies he wants to leave Arsenal
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/david-ospina-quashes-arsenal-exit-8547435
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When Walcott is buzzing out on the right his confidence is high and he feels limited by playing on the right. When he plays centrally he does not play so well, loses confidence and wants to revert to the wing. Unfortunately at the moment he is not playing well enough to play there! And repeat until he has fully digested Alfieri’s closing comments.
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Stuart MacFarlane @Stuart_PhotoAFC 24m24 minutes ago
My office for the day. #photocall #afc #arsenal #arsenalsquad
many are taking this as a sign that AFC will complete a signing today, but he might be doing the first team photo shoot, although that is usually not done at this time of pre-season
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Theo Walcott has over the last couple of seasons had very up and down form, he started both seasons in good form, some man of the match performances, then injury struck and when he came back, nothing clicked for him. It seems too many fans only remember his form after injury. What too few are taking into account is the off field problems Theo has being dealing with in the last two years. Its my understanding that both his wife and child have had serious health problems, and it aint good enough for this to be dismissed cos” he is earning £140K a week”, as if that changes the turmoil that a loved ones ill health can bring.
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