Walcott – If only Arsenal played this well earlier in the season

Yet again Arsenal fans have had to endure a nerve-wracking end of season as the Gunners have had to up their game to fight against Tottenham for a place in the Champions League, and yet again it looks like the Gunners are just going to do enough to win the “Wenger Cup”, but Theo Walcott wonders why the squad don’t ever play so well at the beginning of the campaign.

“We just have great experience in knowing what to do when the time is right,” Walcott said yesterday. “It’s funny, it happens every year. We tend to finish very strong. I think it is just because the players want it so much. We need to show that in the mid-season and at the start and we could hopefully be even higher than we are and not have this situation that we are in.

“The Champions League is big for the future of the club and the players. We have been in it for the last 15 years and we don’t want to be the players who are not part of that. The Europa League is great and, obviously, Chelsea have made the final. It is great if you get to the final because it is a very tough competition, like the Champions League. But it’s all eyes on the Champions League at the moment for us.”

As Wenger is always quick to point out, the reasons for our sluggish start is usually because we are waiting for the new players to settle into the squad, which I hate to point out is a direct result of Arsenal selling off their best players every summer! Hopefully this transfer window will be different and we will see the same core of players (with a few top, top class additions of course!) at the beginning of next season.

Maybe we can get off to a flying start?