No one tried harder to get in behind Cologne on Thursday night than Theo Walcott.

The England forward’s natural game is to make runs beyond the last defender and his average position was way ahead of Alexis and Olivier Giroud - especially in the first half. Theo caused Cologne plenty of problems but he admits that his timing needs a bit of fine tuning.

“I was offside too many times to be honest,” Theo told Arsenal Player. “I was disappointed with that.

“I won’t dwell on that too long. It’s just about me timing my runs slightly better, but I say the players are playing it too late, that’s my excuse anyway! I like to make the runs and I’ll definitely be feeling it tomorrow morning.”

Play video Watch Arsenal video online 01:11 Watch the goals from the Cologne game

Theo was heavily involved in his first start of the season and he put our 3-1 win down to a half-time tactical switch that got himself and Alexis into more dangerous positions.

“We went back to the 4-3-3,” he said. “I like to make the runs to create space for other players and to stretch teams and it seemed to work in the second half especially.

“First half it was always difficult to get involved for the whole team really. They closed us down very well, they were very strong from the back. But in the end we got the result which we really deserved, I think. It was a nervous start but it was good to end on a positive result.”