Chelsea players congratulated me on my goal, says Arsenal’s Walcott

Theo Walcott has revealed that Petr Cech and Juan Mata praised the Arsenal forward for his goal following Chelsea’s 2-1 win over the Gunners on Sunday.

Walcott fired home a cool finish after the break to halve the deficit after the Blues found themselves 2-0 up through goals from Mata and Frank Lampard.

The Gunners were unable to conjure an equaliser despite an impressive second-half display – but Walcott revealed that Cech and Mata complimented him on his finish after the game.

“Petr Cech was saying ‘great finish’ after [Sunday’s game]. It’s coming from a world-class keeper and it means a lot,” Walcott told Arsenal’s website.

“You get Juan Mata congratulating me afterwards. Little things like that, coming from these players that I look up to and watch and learn from every week means a lot to me.”

Walcott last week finally put pen to paper on a new three-and-a-half year Arsenal contract to end the speculation over his future.

And the England international is intent on helping fire the sixth-placed Gunners back up the table.

“Now I want to repay everyone who’s been faithful to me and I’m definitely ready for that battle,” he continued.

“I’d rather not score goals and the team wins, that’s the sort of person that I am. But I know where Arsenal should be.

“That’s why I committed my future to them. We need to start realising how good we are, because we showed some great stuff in the second half [against Chelsea] but we need to do that from the start of games.”