Theo Walcott has expressed his gratitude to Carlo Ancelotti and Marcel Brands after departing Everton on loan to Southampton.
The winger, whose contract at Goodison Park expires at the end of this season, returned to the club where he started his career on transfer deadline day.
Walcott’s wages, believed to be in excess of £100,000-a-week, are being split 50/50 between Everton and Southampton, and after falling down the pecking order at the Blues, he thanked their manager and director of football for helping to facilitate a deal.
Hampshire Live quote Walcott as saying: “I actually first heard about it all three days before deadline day.
“As soon I heard about it I said: 'This had to happen, this needs to happen. I really want this to happen.’
“ Carlo [Ancelotti], Marcel [Brands] and myself have a really good relationship where we can get things sorted and they helped to make it happen in the end which I was really grateful for.
"My time at Everton was absolutely brilliant and I enjoyed every minute of it.
“But my focus now is here and let's see where the future lies for me.”
Walcott’s return to the south coast comes over 14-and-a-half years after originally departing the Saints for Arsenal.
Although the Gunners paid a £5million fee, rising to £12million, because Walcott was still only 16 at the time he originally signed as a scholar and could not pen a professional contract until his 17th birthday on March 16, almost two months after the move.
Called up by Sven-Goran Eriksson for England’s World Cup squad in Germany that summer, Walcott became the Three Lions’ youngest-ever player and won his first cap before he even made his Premier League debut.
Now 31, he hasn’t been called up for his country for four years but Walcott insists that returning to where it all began for him after a longer period away than Wayne Rooney between his two Everton spells (13 years, 2004-17), he’s feeling young again.
Asked about a potential international recall, Walcott said: “I don't want to get ahead of myself.
“I have to focus on getting fit first, really. That's my priority.
“I am dead excited though. I can't wait to put on the shirt, honestly.
“I feel like I am a kid again, like a big kid."
