January 7 – When the draw was made for next summer’s World Cup finals, England manager Roy Hodgson said his team’s chances might well partly depend on how many players were missing through injury.
Six months before the big kickoff he has already lost the versatile Theo Walcott.
England’s loss is also Arsenal’s after the winger, who can also operate in a central role, was ruled out for the rest of the season because of a cruciate ligament injury sustained in the closing stages of last weekend’s FA Cup defeat of Tottenham Hotspur when he was arguably the most dangerous player on the pitch.
Walcott had scored five goals in his last six games for the Premier League leaders since recovering from an early-season stomach injury. He did not seem in too much pain as he was being carried off on a stretcher, sitting up and smiling as he signalled the 2-0 scoreline to Tottenham fans, a gesture which prompted widespread headlines but which brought no disciplinary action.
News of the extent of his injury came as a huge shock to club and country as well as to a player who has been plagued by a series of untimely setbacks through his career and is yet to play at a World Cup finals despite being a surprise selection in Sven-Goran Eriksson’s 2006 squad as a teen-ager.
Walcott was left out of Fabio Capello’s 2010 squad but has since re-established himself and had been expected to play a key role for England in Brazil.
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