Your View: Should Arsenal break their wage structure for Theo Walcott?
Arsenal’s chairman Peter Hill-Wood has revealed that Theo Walcott has turned down the club’s recent £75,000-a-week contract offer, but remains adamant that the 23-year-old’s ongoing situation can be resolved.
Walcott, who scored and assisted another against West Ham last Saturday, has yet to sign a new deal with the Gunners despite having just under 12 months remaining on his current one.
The England international will be allowed to speak to foreign clubs about agreeing to a pre-contract transfer from January, with Hill-Wood insisting Arsenal won’t be breaking their wage structure to pay Walcott’s £100,000-a-week demands.
“We have got our general overall wage structure and we are not prepared to break it for anybody,” he said. “We have made an offer which he didn’t think was acceptable and that is the end of it. We think it is a very reasonable offer.
“For the moment his people are still talking to us and we hope it will be resolved. But don’t ask me when, because I haven’t a clue.
“I hope that he will eventually come round and sign. It will be a pity if he does not, but the whole issue of pay for footballers has got totally out of hand and they don’t get terribly well advised a lot of the time.”
Talks are expected to continue with Walcott’s representatives during the current international break, with sources close to the player suggesting that he’s keen on staying at Arsenal.
Do you think Arsenal should break their wage structure for Theo Walcott? Is he worth £100,000-a-week and could the forward be easily replaced? Have your say in the poll and comments section below.
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I think we should re-structure the wage system in terms of paying the likes Squillaci, Chamakh or Park when in all honesty they’ll most likely never play for the club again
Theo is not a 100K player. Under any logical wage structure.
I think he deserves it. He is loyal to the club and he really wants to stay. But on the other hand, letting him have his way will open doors for other players to make crazy demands. I think Arsenal and Walcott should try to meet each other halfway. On that note, please Walcott, stay.
What a great player he is,but we should not pay him 100k every weeks,but should pay him 80k every weeks,he dont accept that let him leave and go to another club who will pay him 200k every weeks,but i wish him to stay at Arsenal.
A 25/26 year old Theo who has shown a great deal of consistency in his football should definitely earn 100+ in the modern game. He´s not there yet.
adam johnson and theo walcott have generally the same goal/game ratio at both club and country level (johnson is two years older, but discount theo’s hat trick in croatia and that maybe evens out) if theo goes to man city, first, is he expecting to play as a center forward? please… second, the reasons that mancini moved johnson on are unclear to me, so i can’t be too sure of this, but certainly more as expected of him as a tricky winger, of which theo is neither. he’s got slightly more of a head on his shoulders than say marlon king, but money talks…
I really like Walcott… But he ain’t worth more than 75k weekly. These players just think they can hold the coach & club to ransom, can Walcott ask to be played as a striker in CFC, MUFC, MCFC, or even LFC? It’s nothing but complete disrespect for the coach & club, who has transformed players like Henry & RVP to Successful strikers! Wenger knows how/where to get the best out of Walcott, he needs to get this into his ungrateful mind and sign or get shipped out in January! (@11Rayz)
Agree with both comments when signing unproven players we should be looking at a low wage with a view to changing that wage 12 months later based on performance and future at the club that way we wouldnt be in the mess we are in trying to offload these guys somebody would of picked up bendtner chamakh park etc if they werent having to pay them 70k a week and more like 30k they wouldnt be at the club anymore its a privelage to have clubs like Arsenal taking a punt on you if we signed Zaha for instance 20k a week and if he performs and has a future at the club as promised you up his wage but 70k should be for the Carzolas of the team only but obviously money talks in this age i dont believe financial fair play will ever really happen unfortunately
If players like Cazorla, Podolski and alike with performances rated 8 or more out of 10 week in week out request 100K or 120K I would agree. Inconsistent TW rates average 6 to 7 out of 10, so he is a team pleayer with no automatic placement on the first team team-sheet. Result – pay him 50K and if he doesn’t like it ask him get lost.
A player’s wages is always debatable, Theo 100k is high based on his past performance. Arsenal wage structure is flawed despite all its good intentions as it overpays poor players at the expense of stars, note the difficulty of selling poor, wage hungry players. Offload Squillaci and 6 others and you can easily afford a couple of stars.
To restructure the wage system or not I’m not sure. But to keep a valuable player there should be flexibilities in wages so as to meet OR to compromise on the player’s demand. In Walcott’s case, perhaps the club should raise the offer to say 85k-90k. Wnger should do that if he really thinks Walcott is top class, as he used to say. Some suggest Walcott will get to play as striker in ManU or Man City. NO he won’t. They have enough better strikers now. Some suggested Fergurson brought the best out of RvP. NO, that’s incorrect, he is merely in form now and it will not be too long his form will drop, especially when he starts to get injured.
walcot has not reached the heights he was touted for n so for me i don’t think he has reached the level of receiving 100k a week, he is too one dimensional in his play n is very predictable, until he improves this he should sign the contract n try n justify why he needs an improved contract.
It’s a tricky one. Theo is definitely an asset. Despite the comparisions to The Ox, he really is quite a unique player in terms of his playing style. I’ve always liked him, and I think he has tremendous potential under Wenger.
As long as it doesn’t break our wage structure, we should do everything to sign him.
Theo walcot should sing a new deal but not more than 80k per week,if he does not want that let him leave and we sing another player.