Walcott climbs the IQ table

Has Theo Walcott found his football brain behind the sofa? The Arsenal winger's audacious goal against Chelsea suggested he mighty finally be attaining the speed of thought that his pace demands.

Since he skedaddled to London from Southampton in 2006, Walcott has been derided as a jet-heeled airhead. His reputation for lacking footie intelligence has been hard earned: he seems to possess a rare instinct for the wrong option.

Even the greatest players make dodgy decisions on occasion (the game would be dull without such brain-farts), but Walcott has made more than his fair share.

Theo is no thicko. In interviews, he is quick-witted, articulate and self-aware. But knowing the wisest course of action on the edge of a crowded penalty box has nothing to do with vocabulary or social graces.

Look at Wayne Rooney or Cristiano Ronaldo: not the brightest bulbs in the drawer by any conventional measure, but few shine brighter on a pitch. Their neural pathways are autobahns of spatial-kinetic awareness. Like any skill, football intelligence is the product of an interaction between good genes and good schooling.

Some say Walcott's feel for the game was stunted by a lack of proper coaching in his pre-teen years: he played for a Berkshire village team until he was 11, whereas many of his peers were being groomed in professional club academies from the age of seven or eight.

A more convincing theory is simply that Walcott's uncanny pace dumbed down his game in his formative years. Just as a supermodel becomes boring because she doesn't have to crack jokes to get laid, so young Walcott became predictable because he didn't have to outwit his opponents to score.

He simply scooted past them and netted with his trademark finish: drilled low from just inside the box, across the keeper and inside the far post. He bagged a hat-trick of such goals for England against Croatia in 2008, but the one-dimensionality of his play later cost him his England place.

But now, all of a sudden, Walcott is attacking with guile and variety. The sharp-witted strike against Chelsea was preceded by two devilishly accurate crosses (one driven, one chipped) that were squandered by Gervinho and Robin van Persie.

And throughout the contest, there was a spark and a swagger about the winger, a sense that he finally feels at home on the brutally unforgiving stage of Premier League football.

There were some signs of progress from Walcott last season, when he contributed 13 goals and eight assists. And with Arsenal's old attacking bravado back in evidence, he looks well placed to beat that haul this term.

The Gunners will not win anything serious this season because the defence remains a surrealist comedy quartet, but Arsene Wenger's high-risk approach will give Walcott a handy platform to make his case for Euro 2012 selection.

Maybe Walcott's surge is due to his compiling 10000 hours of training and playing - according to Malcolm Gladwell, that's the minimum investment of time and effort required to master any pursuit.

And he has thousands of hours left in which to refine his decision-making. The kid is only 22 - five years away from his prime. Leo Messi he ain't, but Walcott may yet have the last laugh.