English FA Championship/Arsenal 1 Aston Villa 1: Theo Walcott passed his Premiership entrance exam with honours. Having played for England's under-19s, under-21s and seniors before getting a kick in the top flight of domestic football, the £11-million teenager was finally given his chance and responded by rescuing Arsenal from the prospect of a depressing start to life in their wonderland of a new stadium.
By the time Walcott made his appearance as a 73rd-minute replacement for Fredrik Ljungberg, the home fans among the 60,023 spectators had long given up admiring the curved stands and Pullman-class seats that make the stadium an aesthetic and ergonomic marvel. As the dainty filigree of Arsenal's incessant attacks failed to make an impression on an iron-willed Aston Villa defence, a crescendo of grumbling made it sound as though some of those present were harbouring nostalgic thoughts of the days when the North Bank would shudder with ecstasy as John Radford headed down Geordie Armstrong's cross for Ray Kennedy to fire home.
On Villa's final visit to Highbury last spring, Arsenal won 5-0. And yet on Saturday, despite an embarrassment of possession, they faced the massive anti-climax of a defeat at the hands of a side making its own fresh start.
Villa's players had clearly made a collective decision to show Martin O'Neill, their new manager, what they could do, and the header with which their captain Olof Mellberg gave them the lead in the 53rd minute from Steven Davis's inswinging corner was no more than a just reward.
That was Villa's sole corner of the match, to Arsenal's 18. An abundance of chances fell to Thierry Henry, Emmanuel Adebayor and the electrifying Emmanuel Eboue, but the deft approach work was blunted time and again.
Villa, as O'Neill reflected, had "put themselves in the firing line", employing a deep and massed defence in which Liam Ridgewell, Mellberg's young centre-back partner, excelled.
And then came Walcott. Given a standing ovation, he justified his welcome by posing problems for Villa with every touch. Taking a position wide on the left of a reshaped 4-3-3, he was deep in his own half when he dispossessed the excellent Steve Davis and raced upfield, exchanging passes with Henry before checking back to send over the cross that allowed Eboue to shoot first against Thomas Sorensen and then against the angle.
Ten minutes later, he accepted Aleksandr Hleb's pass and again chipped cleverly to the far post, where the ball skimmed off Jlloyd Samuel's head on its way to the unmarked Gilberto Silva, who volleyed it home with fierce delight.
Were you watching, Sven? Or Steven Gerrard? You had to wonder why the Swede, having taken the 17-year-old to Germany, lost his nerve when it came to actually making use of the qualities revealed on Saturday, when Walcott showed himself capable of reshaping a big occasion and drew an unforced compliment from the opposing manager. "He was brilliant," O'Neill said.
"Theo is the kind of player who can bring something to any team when he comes on," Wenger observed. "He can come on right, left, or up front and straight away makes the game lively."
Despite the urgency of the situation here, Wenger's instructions had been simple.
"He just told me to go on and do the stuff that got me in the squad," Walcott said. "Once I had a first touch of the ball, the confidence came into me."
Wenger, meanwhile, expressed anger with the France coach Raymond Domenech for playing Henry for the full 90 minutes of France's midweek friendly. This, he claimed, was a "disrespectful" and "provocative" use of a player who had been given extra time off by his club to recover from his exertions in the World Cup and looked well short of sharpness against Villa.
Walcott, by contrast, was as fresh as befitted the recipient of a paid holiday that lasted all summer.
