Playalikes: Number Five: Theo Wright-Lennon

Lookalikes are ten-a-penny – anyone can make Dirk Kuyt look like Sloth from the Goonies, or Peter Reid look like a monkey. It takes more to put two people together stylistically and functionally; players who remind you of one another, players who play like each other – players that could be clones of one another. Playalikes. Number five in our series is a first – Threealikes. Three players who play the same. Three!

As you can guess from the hybrid title, our threesome are all wingers. They are all young, all black, all quick, all suspect positionally, all lacking a part of their football brain, all have a dodgy end product. All are confidence players, all have represented England, all are right footed, all are diminutive… our three are Theo Walcott, Sean Wright-Phillips, and Aaron Lennon.

Let’s do a direct comparison:

Let’s look at the anomalies, now – Wright-Phillips is comfortably the oldest at 27, Theo Walcott is comfortably the tallest, at 5″9, and Lennon has the worst strike rate, with a goal every 12 matches as opposed to about one in eight for the other two.

It would be interesting to see their respective assist stats; but unfortunately that’s not easily discoverable. If Lennon does not have at least a comparable rate to the other two, he could satisfactorily be classed as the least productive. But then he is a slightly different player – he does hug the touchline, whereas the other two come infield a lot more – and both SWP and Walcott have been tried as strikers, something that has never (probably correctly!) been tried with Lennon.

Nevertheless, despite these differences, these three players are undeniably ‘playalikes’. Quick, and trrifying for defenders, each would be arguably world class if they had a better end product. Wright-Phillips is now destined to be a ‘nearly’ or a ‘never was’, at 27 he is not going to find the consistency required to be a top, top player (staggering that his transfer fees have been so high really). Walcott definitely still has time, and has shown flashes that he could become more Henry than Andy Cole. Lennon looks a lost cause already – he just doesn’t seem able to cross or shoot properly. There are signs recently that he could improve, but the jury is out, and very nearly decided on a ‘no’.

Walcott would be your choice if you could have any one of them, hence Capello’s preference for him on England’s right flank (not to mention his hat-trick on the biggest stage). But were Don Fabio to go for SWP, or Lennon, would anyone really notice…?