- Theo Walcott joins Everton in £25m deal
The 28-year-old, who spent 12 years with the Gunners and played in nearly 400 games, has signed a three-and-a-half year contract worth over £110,000 a week.
Walcott becomes Sam Allardyce’s second signing of the January transfer window following the £27m arrival of striker Cenk Tosun from Besiktas.
The England international opted to join Everton despite serious interest from West Ham, Bournemouth and his former club Southampton.
He scored 108 goals for Arsenal after arriving as a 16-year-old in January 2006, but has fallen down the pecking order under Arsene Wenger this season, and has now signed on to be an Everton player until 2022.
Walcott told the Everton club website: ‘I’m very ambitious and I’ve come here because I want the club to push to the next level, and with the players that have come in, I feel like the next level can be reached.
‘I’m very excited to be starting a new chapter and I felt this was the right place for me to be. The manager is very ambitious and I feel like the club is going in the right direction.
‘The fact there’s a new stadium going to be developing in the next few years, it’s exciting times for Everton Football Club.’
Walcott has not started a Premier League match this season and has appeared off the bench on only six occasions in the top-flight. He has made 16 appearances in all competitions and scored four goals.
He admitted he had felt he needed to move on from Arsenal in order to ‘reignite’ a career which was in danger of stagnating.
He said: ‘I’m dead excited and I just want to do what I do best which is playing football and expressing myself because I’m excited again, I really am.
‘It felt like it was time for me to move on. It was sad but it’s exciting at the same time and I want to reignite my career and push Everton to win things as they have done before. I want to be part of something and I feel like this place will offer me that.’
Capable of playing on either wing and as a central striker, Walcott is desperate for playing time at Goodison Park as he bids to force his way into Gareth Southgate’s England squad for this summer’s World Cup.
The former Saints youngster is likely to be included in Everton’s squad to face West Brom at home on Saturday as Allardyce looks to end a run of four straight defeats.
