Walcott claims Arsenal players are ignoring Wenger scrutiny

Arsenal players are ignoring the intense speculation surrounding the future of manager Arsene Wenger, Theo Walcott has claimed.

The England international opened the scoring late in the first half of the FA Cup quarter-final at home to Lincoln City on Saturday, his goal triggering what ultimately proved to be a routine 5-0 win for the Gunners.

Despite booking their place in the semi-finals of the competition, the focus is likely to remain on the manager, who is out of contract at the end of the season and has faced calls to quit after the humiliating 10-2 aggregate loss to Bayern Munich in the last 16 of Champions League.

Some Gunners fans marched with a banner reading ‘Wexit’ before the match but, speaking to BT Sport, Walcott insisted the squad are paying little attention to the debate over the whether or not the long-serving manager should stay on in north London next season.

12 – Theo Walcott has now scored the same number of FA Cup goals for Arsenal as @IanWright0 did (12). Hitman.

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) March 11, 2017

“We are the sort of team that we’re not going to be distracted by anything that’s going on outside the club,” he said.

“We’re going to keep it within our group, focus on ourselves. We know how good we are, we’ve got to remember that. 

“We’re in the semi-final of an FA Cup at Wembley as well, so it’s a good achievement already. We’re just going to concentrate on ourselves. 

“We’re not even going to look at what anyone else says. It’s obviously a very good result, we’re just going to move on from it, focus on next weekend, work hard in the week. 

“We’re not bothered by anyone but ourselves.”