They may both play for my old club, but I’m not being biased when I say Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli are the two modern-day wingers that I admire the most.
I’d love to be playing in this current Gunners team myself too, of course, because they are an exciting side that is expected to challenge for the title – but I would have to get in ahead of Saka down the right, and there would be no chance of that!
My old position itself has changed so much, in any case. I only retired in August but I don’t see myself as having been a modern-day winger. Not in the way Saka and Martinelli operate, anyway.
Some of the demands of the role now probably don’t quite work for me, in that part of the freedom I had in certain areas of the pitch has gone.
I was sort of old-school, in that I wanted to be direct and aggressive straight away, and put defenders on the back foot.
Now, it feels like the idea is more about draining the defender. So, a lot of the time the winger will dribble a bit but then he will come back out with the ball. The move continues and the same might happen again, and again, grinding them down.
That always keeps defenders guessing now, I suppose, because they don’t have players driving at them down the flanks all the time any more, apart from a few exceptions in the Premier League.
Manchester City’s Jeremy Doku is one. He’s probably more old-school like I was, because he is just so direct. Michael Olise at Crystal Palace is another, and even Fulham’s Adama Traore with his raw pace.
It’s the same with Saka too. When I watch games now with my kids and talk to them about what a winger should be doing, I just love seeing positive play – and he is one of the most positive players out there. My son loves watching him, and so do I.
I’ve always admired wingers who, even if they lose the ball, keep trying to beat their man and Saka does that, and Martinelli as well. I am a huge fan of both.
But they are different from me because they can do it both ways – to be direct like I was, but also happy having more touches of the ball, keeping possession and coming inside to do their work for the team in other ways.
There are wingers now working 10 times as hard as I did
Saka and Martinelli are both really effective when they get on the ball in the pockets of space between the opposition midfield and defence.
But you don’t get many wingers now who like to make runs in behind, like I did, because a lot of teams tend to drop very deep to defend against that.
Arsenal have found this a lot recently – the space for Saka and Martinelli to run into just isn’t there any more.
That’s one of the reasons they both maybe haven’t quite been as explosive this season as they were last year, but I’d also say it’s hard to maintain that kind of intensity when you have their defensive workload too.
Saka and Martinelli have played a lot of football in the past few months and you have to consider how hard they work, and how they have to do it over and over again, not just in an attacking sense but also without the ball: pressing, tracking runners and keeping tabs on their full-back.
I did that too, but I also remember playing in games where I’d be told not to come back past the halfway line, and that I didn’t need to defend, which was music to my ears as an attacker. I would be thinking that just leaves me free to go forward, which is what I am going to be judged on.
There’s so much more defensive work now, especially if you are playing as a winger for one of the lesser teams against someone like Arsenal or City, when you have to work so hard just to get the ball back.
Their fitness levels are so important and, compared to those times where I was told I didn’t have to defend, they are probably working 10 times as hard and they are hardly ever in possession.
More touches, but what do you do with them?
It is still possible to run in behind defences sometimes – when I was on MOTD2 last week and watched Tottenham against Aston Villa, both teams held such a high line and there were opportunities for runners all the time. As someone who likes to run off the ball, I would have loved to have played in that game.
But the modern-day winger likes having the ball at his feet as well and having plenty of touches, without really having to directly affect the game in the way I always felt was important.
There is a generation now who love watching players having fun with the ball on YouTube – my kids do it, and there is nothing wrong with showing off your skills like that.
For me, though, I was just bothered about how I impacted the game – that’s how I’d evaluate my performances. I could have had loads of touches, or hardly any at all, but all I would ask myself is what have I done with them.
It could be a small thing, but even if I was positive, won a corner and we scored from it, then the goal has come from me driving at my defender and trying to make something happen.
So, after every game, for me it was all about how many crosses have I made, how many shots have I had, and how many goals have I scored?
I scored a ton of goals for Arsenal, but I am not sure now that many wingers are judged on their goals and assists, when they really should be.
I look back on my career and think, yeah I have done that, but you get a lot of wingers who are fantastic dribblers and don’t really have the stats to back that up.
Frustrating the opposition, or hurting them?
I always felt that the final third was the place for me to express myself, but I obviously understand why there is a need to be patient there sometimes.
When you are playing one of the top teams like City, Arsenal or Liverpool and you have been starved of the ball for a long time, you often just want to get your breath back.
So, the last thing you want after winning it back is for your winger to go at them and lose it straight away.
It’s the same if you are winning a really tight game 1-0, then there is obviously no need to try to create something then.
Frustrating the opposition has always been a big part of a winger’s role in situations like that, for example by holding on to the ball a bit more and waiting for the defender to come in tight to you.
It’s how you see a lot of fouls won, particularly towards the end of games, but sometimes it feels like it is now happening too much, even early on.
When I was playing, in the first part of the game, every time I got the ball I would be thinking about what I could do with it straightaway, to get at my defender and make his life difficult.
If I went at him the first time, but then didn’t go at him again the next time, I could tell he was thinking, “Phew, thank God for that.”
I wanted him to be frightened of me, and be constantly thinking about what I was going to do to beat him – whether it be running short and spinning, running behind or just making a run for the sake of it.
Sometimes I wouldn’t even want the ball, or certainly not expect it, but it would keep the defender on his toes constantly, and guessing what I was doing.
I have had defenders go: “Theo, you just don’t stop moving” – and I would be thinking “Well, that’s my job.”
But to be effective, you need technicians on the field that know your strengths. For instance, if I was playing with Cesc Fabregas and I saw he had time on the ball, I always made a run because he knew I would do that, and I knew he would look for me.
If I made the run and he didn’t give it, then that was fine because someone else would get the ball. By making a positive move, I’d still affected play.
‘Dad, were you faster than Mbappe?’
There’s different types of wide attackers too, including inverted forwards like Mohamed Salah and Marcus Rashford, who love to come inside and shoot.
My son plays on the left and wants to be one of those kind of players, cutting in on his right foot, but when I’m training with him I encourage him to go on his left side too quite a lot.
I could rely on my raw pace to get me out of trouble, and I knew that if I knocked the ball down the outside then, most of the time, I could get around my defender that way.
Again, that is pretty old-school, and now I think you need to be able to mix it up.
One thing that hasn’t changed, though, is how wing play is about getting the upper hand on your full-back, however you manage it.
Speed was one of my weapons, and my son asked me the other day if I was quicker than Kylian Mbappe.
I was like: “Well I don’t know… but when I was young I was really quick.” I mean, Mbappe is seriously fast but he is a bit different to me, because I was quick over the first 10 to 30 metres.
So I said it would have been a close race, but deep down I think I was a little bit quicker than him… just maybe not any more!
Theo Walcott was speaking to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.
- Our coverage of the Gunners is bigger and better than ever before – here’s everything you need to know to make sure you never miss a moment
- Everything Arsenal – go straight to all the best content
