Goodwill and good buy Walcott’s Arsenal exit

Arsenal sold Theo Walcott on the cheap as a goodwill gesture due to the winger’s long service, according to Everton manager Sam Allardyce.

Walcott headed to Goodison for £20 million last month, and today returns to the club where he spent 12 years.

“A lot of negotiation was done by Theo,” said Allardyce. “Because of his service and the fact he would accept what Arsene [Wenger] was doing, he is not a troublesome player who would throw toys out of the pram. That respect between him and the club resulted in the move.” As for the defender who never arrived, despite attempts to sign one, Wenger simply said that situation would be improved by scoring more goals. They have eight fewer than they did at this stage of last season, and eight fewer points, and the Arsenal manager repeated his point about the deficit in goalscoring enough times to tell you that it is on his mind. “That’s our DNA, we are an attacking team,” he said. “The danger is when you are an attacking team that you don’t score and then of course you create your own problems.”

It became clear that Wenger is not worrying as much as others about his defence, shaky once again in Tuesday’s defeat to Swansea. This month, he has lost Sanchez, Walcott, Giroud and Francis Coquelin as well as Jeff Reine-adelaide on loan, against the signings of Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. At one point Wenger even fretted that the squad might be low on numbers. Alex Song, 30, and out of contract has been permitted to train at London Colney in the afternoons to stay in shape, and Wenger said there was no prospect of him re-joining on a short-term basis. He was quite sure about that.