THEO WALCOTT WATCH: minutes on the pitch, 90; shots on target, one; shots off target, two; goals, none; yellow cards, one; rating, C minus. Harsh? Maybe, but when you have a £10 million price-tag on you, you are in the business of harsh assessments. Southampton’s 16-year-old wonderkid started on the left, switched to the front and ended up on the right, but he was largely anonymous.
His best chance came after 37 minutes, when the ball fell to him 15 yards out. His shot was well saved by Simon Royce, the Queens Park Rangers goalkeeper, and he sliced the rebound over the bar.
In the second half it was his cross that QPR, at that point down to ten men because of an injury to Georges Santos, failed to clear and led to Southampton’s penalty, which Nigel Quashie — once a 17-year-old protégé at Loftus Road — fired against a post. Apart from that, Walcott’s only souvenir of the afternoon was a QPR shirt, courtesy of Paul Furlong. He left the field last, clad in blue and white hoops, having given the sort of lingering salute to Southampton supporters that normally comes before a transfer.
Not that George Burley, the Southampton manager, was admitting that Walcott was going to Arsenal, or anywhere else for that matter. “Nothing has changed, we are planning ahead with Theo at the club, we want to keep him,” he said. “At the moment the best place for him is Southampton. He’s enjoying himself, playing regular first-team football and will just get better and better. I’ve never had a 16-year-old playing regularly. I’ve had plenty of 17-year-olds — Kieron Dyer, Darren Ambrose (as manager of Ipswich Town). Theo can go on and be better than all of them.”
Rather than keep Walcott, Burley, who fielded two other teenagers in Nathan Dyer and Dexter Blackstock, could do better to reinvest some of the money from his sale in a team who have lost five of their past six league games.
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Walcott did make an impression on Steve Lomas, the QPR midfield player, and not only for the bad tackle that earned the teenager a yellow card. “He’s pretty quick and I wouldn’t like to be chasing him all the time,” the former Northern Ireland captain said. “He’s obviously got a bright future, he’s got blistering pace, but I thought Matthew Rose played him quite well. The key with players like that is to not let them turn. He probably got a bit frustrated at the end.”
Lomas, in his first match for three months, led the rearguard effort by the home team in the second half. QPR had deserved their half-time lead, Richard Langley slotting home a penalty after Gareth Ainsworth had been bundled over by Danny Higginbotham. Furlong had a goal ruled out for offside, but though it remained tense, QPR held on to climb into the top half.