Bentley said: “Sometimes you need football, you need games to become better, to put your skills out on the football pitch.
"If he (Walcott) is not getting the minutes at Arsenal, he's going to have to look elsewhere. Your career doesn't start and end at Arsenal. It can flourish somewhere else.
“At the end of the day you want to make a career for yourself," Bentley told talkSPORT radio station.
"You want to play football for a start and you want to make money as well. It's your job. If you want to make a career for yourself you can't afford to stay at a club where you might be 24 or 25 with 30 games under your belt.”Bentley played only once for Arsenal while he was on the club's books from 2001-06. He was loaned out to Norwich, for whom he played 26 times, and Blackburn, where he made 14 appearances before he signed permanently for the Lancashire club in 2006.
Bentley made regular appearances in the England Under 21 team from 2005, and broke into the full England team last year.
On leaving Arsenal himself to further his playing career, Bentley said: “It was hard to leave. I was there from when I was 12 years old and I had a lot of friends. It becomes like a home. It became comfortable. But I didn't want to accept not playing and thinking 'these players are better than me.' Every week I wanted a game.”
