Youth not an excuse for Walcott’s Arsenal

(GSM) – Theo Walcott has stated that youth can no longer be used as an excuse by Arsenal for failing to deliver during crunch times.

A promising Gunners campaign was hampered in the second half of the season, leaving the north London side without any silverware for a fifth successive year.

While arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur could overtake Arsene Wenger’s men for third place, if they suffer a home defeat to Europa League finalists Fulham, Wenger believes his young squad will be stronger for having come through the last couple of testing campaigns.

And Walcott has echoed the same sentiment after seeing his side’s title chances blown away with successive defeats at Spurs and then Wigan, when they led 2-0 with 10 minutes left.

“We can’t use the experience as an excuse now, with the experiences we’ve had as a side – we need to go that one step further,” Walcott declared.

“It has been quite hard at times. We had a lot of injuries to big players and it has been very frustrating.

“Myself as well, I have had a lot of injuries this season.”

Walcott added on Sky Sports News: “People say if we had had Robin [van Persie] we would have had a bit more of a chance and I am pretty sure if we had had him we would have had more of a chance.

“We had a lot of defensive problems as well, but the likes of Sol [Campbell] came in and did a great job.

“Nicklas Bendtner’s done fantastically well. He has scored goals and that’s what you will be judged on.”