Walcott: Honest Arshavin should keep quiet
Arsenal winged wonder Theo Walcott has admitted he told Andrey Arshavin to keep his mouth shut during the Gunners' 3-0 win at Portsmouth, when the Russian tried to prevent the referee from awarding a penalty.
Arsene Wenger's £15 million signing from Zenit St Petersburg has exploded onto the Premier League scene scoring six goals in 10 league outings, including four against Liverpool at Anfield.
And he gained further plaudits at Fratton Park after wagging his finger at official Lee Mason's decision to penalise Sean Davis' challenge on him inside the danger-zone.
Despite the playmaker's honesty, the penalty stood and Nicklas Bendtner successfully converted it to hand the visitors a 2-0 lead.
But Walcott has since admitted he was quick to teach Arshavin - who captained the side at Portsmouth - about the dark side of the English game.
"I saw Andrey doing it and I ran over to him, because if you're 1-0 up away from home and the referee's given a penalty you don't want to tell him it's not one," he said in the Daily Telegraph.
"So I grabbed him and said not to worry about it, I know it's not nice but if you want to win a game you need to take these things.
"It just showed what an honest guy he is, but when you're going for the win I suppose you need to do the dirty things.
"We'd had a penalty shout with Carlos [Vela] earlier so I think these situations just even themselves out."
Get FourFourTwo Newsletter
The best features, fun and footballing quizzes, straight to your inbox every week.
ARSENAL FANS! Check FourFourTwo.com’s ever-expandinginterviewsarchive for more stuff to read:
Web Exclusives Patrick Vieira, Cesc Fabregas
Q&A Theo Walcott, Cesc Fabregas
One on One Arsene Wenger, Thierry Henry, Ian Wright
Boy's A Bit Special Theo Walcott, Armand Traore
Perfect XI Ian Wright
What Happened Next? Gus Caesar, Peter Marinello
And Another Thing Being a Big Four fan
Plus! Rate Arsenal players (and others) on Talentspotter
Gregg Davies is the Chief Sub Editor of FourFourTwo magazine, joining the team in January 2008 and spending seven years working on the website. He supports non-league behemoths Hereford and commentates on Bulls matches for Radio Hereford FC. His passions include chocolate hobnobs and attempting to shoehorn Ronnie Radford into any office conversation.
‘Arteta, Alonso, Emery, me… none of us were physical players – we needed the understanding of the game. That probably helped us move into management’: Premier League boss reveals reasons for natural career progression
‘England have the players to win the World Cup – it’ll be tough for Thomas Tuchel to do a bad job, with the squad he has at his disposal’ Former Three Lions winger backs new boss after gentle qualifying draw