In Defence Of Theo

Dan Billingham Says the Former Arsenal Flyer Didn't Deserve the Unflattering Thierry Henry Comparisons

ONE particular piece of advice keeps cropping up in the excellent film No Hunger inParadise, based on the book by award-winning author Michael Calvin about the piftalls of youth football development.

Delivered with the kind of urgency you only get with advice you know nobody is likely to heed, several interviewees caution parents not to chase their own dreams through their talented sons.

When you reach the big time, all too often it isn’t just your parents’ hopes that weigh on your shoulders, though.

Theo Walcott was one of the greatest promises of the modern era of academyreared English players. He was hyped immediately upon his arrival in the Southampton first team at the age of 16.

When the game’s shrewdest judge of talent at the time, Arsene Wenger, paid a record transfer fee for a boy of his age soon after in 2006 (£5m rising to £12.5m), we had confirmation before Walcott had placed a single toe onto a Premier League pitch that he was destined for the very top.

By the time Walcott had turned 18 in 2007, two major decisions taken by others would ratchet the expectations on him to stratospheric levels.

First came Sven-Goran Eriksson’s decision to take Walcott to the 2006 World Cup when he was nowhere near ready – as a bizarre kind of footballing apprenticeship. Then, a year later, Thierry Henry suddenly left Arsenal.

There would be no point listing all the times Theo Walcott has been compared – nearly always unfavourably - to Thierry Henry.

A Google search of ‘Walcott and Thierry Henry’ yields 262,000 results. The comparisons were immediately obvious from the young Walcott’s blistering pace and sharp movement.

Polish his technique, work on his finishing, and your new Thierry Henry will be ready for delivery in 5-10 business days – so went the thinking at the time, pretty much.