Walcott: Assists more important than goals

The 22-year-old laid on a hat-trick of assists against Blackburn Rovers for colleagues Robin van Persie and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

And the former Southampton academy graduate believes his role for the North London club favours assists ahead of goals.

"One of my main jobs as a winger is to get assists," Walcott told Arsenal's official website. "The goals are a secondary thing.

"Some of them against Blackburn were just tap-ins so it was like a goal really. I hope it made Robin's job easy."

Despite Arsenal's mesmerising 7-1 victory over Steve Kean's side, the club suffered a poor run of results in the league during January, losing three successive games.

That lack of form carried into February with a goalless draw away to Bolton Wanderers on the first day of the month, frustrating the England flanker.

"There are so many world-class players in the dressing room, so it is disappointing when we come back from Bolton with a 0-0 draw where we had a lot of chances," he said.

"It's just been one of those frustrating seasons. Hopefully a lot of those frustrations came out against Blackburn where everybody stood up for themselves.

"The boss always takes a lot of stick from everyone criticising him but us players need to look up to him because he's been taking it all.

"We are the ones who go out there and put out the performances and sometimes they haven't been good enough."

By Jamie Dickenson

Gregg Davies

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.