Theo Walcott calls on Southampton players to take responsibility | OneFootball

Theo Walcott has told a young Southampton squad that it’s time to take “personal responsibility” for their current plight and that there can be no “hand-holding” as they edge ever closer to relegation from the Premier League.

Saints find themselves at risk of being cast adrift at the bottom of the table, with a 2-0 home loss to Crystal Palace keeping them four points from safety. Their plight could have been even worse if any of Everton, Nottingham Forest or Leicester City had picked up points in their respective games at the weekend.

With three defeats on the spin and just seven games remaining, it appears that the south coast club’s 11-season stay in the top-flight is coming to an end, but 34-year-old Walcott has pleaded for the squad to stay positive and focused away from outside noises.

Speaking to the Daily Echo, his apparent rallying cry was both a mixture of encouragement and tough love, as he told the many younger players in the squad that “the older guys and experienced players will try and do their best in a difficult time. But you have to take a little bit of responsibility for yourself as players and build yourself up. It’s not just down to the older players and the manager.

“You need to be able to work and we can’t be holding each other’s hands all the time. We’re there to help but you have to help yourself as well.”

The former Arsenal man also claimed that if players didn’t realise the situation they were in, then they were “finished.”

The youthfulness of Southampton’s squad has been a contributing factor to their demise, with too much being asked of inexperienced campaigners like 21-year-old keeper Gavin Bazunu and 19-year-old Roméo Lavia.

As the most experienced player in the squad, as well as someone who was just coming onto the scene at the time of Saints’ last top-flight relegation in 2005, Walcott is well placed to make such comments, but it seems that it’s all come too late.