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Rise of Oxlade-Chamberlain & Fall of Walcott at Arsenal?

Like many other football fans around the country, I was utterly bemused when Arsene Wengers decided to replace Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for, a seriously out-of-form Andrey Arshavin. The Arsenal fans weren’t shy of voicing there opinions either, with chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing!” ringing around the ground. The 18 year old starlet had had a great game against the league Champions, showing sublime skill down both wings and setting up Arsenal’s equalising goal, taking it down beautifully with his right foot in full sprint and sliding it through to Robin Van Persie. Not five minutes later he was taken off. It isn’t often you see the Arsenal fans turning against Wenger so abruptly, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s Premier League career has certainly started with a bang.

Indeed, Oxlade-Chamberlain’s ability is there for everyone to see and is fast becoming a first team regular for Arsenal, but is it really much of a surprise? After all he was a prominent part of the Southampton team that finished runners-up in League 1 last season, and since being prised away from the South Coast club in the summer, for a hefty price tag of £12 million, he has grown a huge fan-base and a lot of media attention, some people are even mentioning ‘England’ and ‘The Plane’….

This all smacks of Déjà vu to me though.

8th May 2006, Sven-Göran Eriksson announces his 30-player preliminary squad for the upcoming World Cup in Germany. To the Nations surprise a young Arsenal player, who had recently been transferred from Southampton, for a fee believed to be around £12 Million is picked. At the time Walcott hadn’t even made a first team appearance and had only played 21 times for the Saints, yet he was chosen to be part of the England squad, ahead of Darren Bent and Jermain Defoe.

The similarities are there for all to see. Both pacey exciting Wingers, both come from Southampton, and both ironically purchased for the same price. Although, you’d think only one of them is a real hope for England and Arsenals future. With the country being dazzled by Arsenals number 15’s pace, skill and technique in his first Premier League start, he is fast becoming a crowd favourite with the Emirates crowd, and with his first international hat-trick under his belt it surely won’t be long ‘till Capello and Wenger take note?

What does this mean for Walcott though? Despite being only 22 he is already a senior member of the Arsenal squad yet he is yet to show any consistency to his game. After bagging an Impressive hat trick for England against Croatia in 2010 World Cup Qualifiers, he was controversially not chosen as part of the Squad for the tournament. He has gained much praise from fellow Professionals and Managers, with Lionel Messi stating he was one of the most dangerous players he had ever played against when Arsenal and Barcelona met last season, yet rightly or wrongly he is often the point of criticism from many Arsenal fans.

One things for sure though, if Chamberlain preforms like he did against Manchester United for the rest of the season, Walcott might be seeing the bench a bit more often.

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