Theo Walcott is seemingly destined not to play in the beautiful game’s show piece event – The World Cup – to be played later this year in Brazil. As Sky Sports News are reporting this hour, Walcott is out for at least 6 months with his latest injury – an anterior cruciate ligament injury in his left knee – which he sustained against Tottenham in the FA Cup tie this past Saturday. The injury was announced on the club’s website after Theo had a scan today and he will have surgery soon in London.

Four years ago in 2010, Walcott missed out on playing in the World Cup when then England manager, Fabio Capello decided to leave him at home and preferred the likes of Aaron Lennon and James Milner to him in the wide positions. This time around Walcott looked like he was locked in as a definite member of Roy Hodgson’s squad and seemingly already had his seat on the plane to Brazil booked. Walcott did make it to the World Cup as a 17 year old under Sven Goran-Eriksson but played no games.

Most importantly from an Arsenal perspective, it leaves Arsene Wenger without one of his deadliest weapons for the rest of the season and the pursuit of silverware. Walcott had only recently returned to 1st team action and had scored 5 goals in his past 6 games after being out for 3months with an abdominal injury he sustained in September. Arsenal will really miss Walcott’s pace and his goals but they do have Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain coming back soon and Podolski has just returned so they will get some help. During Walcott’s first injury absence Serge Gnabry filled in well but he does not have Walcott’s pace and overall is not close to Walcott yet.

All we can hope for is a speedy recovery for Theo and hopefully he will make a miraculous return to the Arsenal team before the end of the season and make it to Brazil with England but it does not look good.