£20 million deal but Walcott can't buy a goal

Cost of an Arsenal season ticket: 1,955 pounds. Buying a replica of Arsene Wenger's duvet-style coat, Egyptian duck feathers included: 200 pounds. Winning a trophy, any trophy, after almost eight years of consuming anguish and frustration: priceless. For everything else, there is Jack Wilshere.

While Wilshere might not be able to scratch Arsenal's acute itch for silverware on his own, he is the surest bet for Wenger to begin restoring hope to an uncertain future at the Emirates. The way the 20 year-old unleashed his devastating left-foot finish last night, and then wheeled away thumping the badge on his shirt in celebration, was a heavenly sight for fans desperate to end almost a decade deprived of silverware with an FA Cup triumph.

Wilshere's majestic flourish was precisely the tonic they needed after 85 minutes of fruitlessness. And there might yet be better news. Theo Walcott was yesterday on the cusp of signing a 31/2-year 20 milion pounds deal worth up to 100,000 pounds a week, although unlike his feted British team-mate, a fresh contract could not buy him a goal.

Walcott huffed and puffed but he still could not blow Swansea's defence down. First he had a shot blocked by Kyle Bartley, then he put the ball wide in a one-on-one with Michel Vorm. When another point-blank effort struck the shoulder of Danny Graham, it seemed he was fated for a night of gut-wrenching near-misses.

The goodwill towards Walcott from an otherwise dissatisfied crowd was palpable. Cries of "Theo" rose from the stands every time he hared goalwards but as so often, even when unleashed in his coveted position through the middle, he lacked the clinical finish. The sight of his 82nd-minute effort rebounding off the inside of the post and into the hands of Swansea's Dutch goalkeeper was nearly too much for him to bear. It took Wilshere's flash of genius, driving the ball beyond Vorm in the blink of an eye, to rescue him.

The worry for restive Arsenal supporters is that Wenger appears to regard the assurance of Walcott's loyalty of some form of panacea for this team's ills. He assumes that the 23-year-old can join Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs, Aaron Ramsey and Carl Jenkinson in forming a tight-knit young British corps of talent who can safeguard the club's philosophy and embody its values. He holds fast to the logic that the faithful Walcott can buck a grim trend started by Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie, both of whom ran down their contracts.

But the cold reality is nothing like so straightforward. As Wenger sits on his hands through London's bleak midwinter, the movements of the January transfer market threaten to leave his project standing. Just across town at QPR, Loic Remy is en route to Loftus Road, with long-time Wenger target Yann M'Vila rumoured to be following suit from Rennes.

With new signings, this most stubborn son of Strasbourg moves as fast as an Alpine glacier. Wenger trusts his coterie of home-grown twenty-somethings, led by the dynamic Wilshere and Walcott, can ultimately bring his idealistic vision to fruition. It is doubtful, though, that Arsenal fans will tolerate this much longer.

Even Wenger seems to find his conviction crumbling. Once he would exhort his players' character and mental resolve ad infinitum, but now timidity and naivety have been his watchwords. There is an apparent acceptance, if not an acknowledgement, that his blueprint of success through youth is inherently flawed. Why else would he have admitted that Arsenal's performance against Manchester City lacked authority?

He is even starting to talk of Cesc Fabregas coming back, as if in the grip of some nightmare from which he will awake when the prodigal son returns. But the horrors were at least briefly allayed as the Emirates resounded as one to the cry of: "There's only one Jackie Wilshere."