Oliver Kay at The Times has tweeted that Theo Walcott has turned down Arsenal’s latest contract offer. I believe his source was someone in Theo’s camp.
If the story is true then Arsenal will be selling Walcott in the the next 72 hours. As with Nasri and van Persie, Arsenal will not let Walcott walk away for free next summer, so they have to sell him now.
The two most likely destinations for Walcott are Manchester City and Liverpool. Man City is an obvious destination after the Premier League champions sold Adan Johnson and have had a bid for Scott Sinclair turned down today. The other potential destination is Liverpool, who need a right sided forward and have been linked with Walcott all summer.
The big question for Arsenal fans is who comes in and replaces Walcott? There are rumours that City will/have offered Dzeko as part of a Walcott deal, while Arsenal have also been linked with a loan deal for Barcelona attacking midfielder Ibrahim Afellay.
Afellay would be a better option than Walcott as he plays a similar position to Walcott, but Arsenal fans must be feeling a poor case of deja vu. It’s last August all over again, when Arsenal sold Fabregas and Nasri right before the transfer deadline.
In addition to Walcott, Arsenal obvously need to find a replacement for Alex Song, who was sold to Barcelona last week.
I cannot believe that Arsenal are going through this again. They seemed to have done their buying early this summer with Podolski and Girpud brought in to replace van Persie. But now the Gunners are scrambling to bring in players again after more important team members are sold.
