Jack wanting future sorted

is not as though it is the first time the club have told Wilshere he could leave.

That came in a phone call from Arsene Wenger, right, while Wilshere was working out on a gym bike in the club’s London Colney training complex last August, when he was focused more on getting fit for the start of the new campaign. “It was an honest conversation,” said Wilshere. “I was on the bike in the gym, and it was a strange one, because maybe part of me knew all this already. All I needed was some clarity on where I stood.

“We have known each other long enough where we can have that relationship where we are honest with each other.

“It was boiling up for a while because everybody knew I had a year left on my deal and I had been out on loan, got injured, and wasn’t really in his plans.

“He said, ‘I am going to be honest with you and at the moment we are not going to be offering you a contact, so if you can get a contract somewhere else, you can go’.

“Obviously I was not happy with that, but at the same time I was happy he was being honest. I did not find anything that I wanted and at the same time I was not really fit, so I decided that I wanted to stay and build up my fitness. “I always had confidence I could get back into the midfield if I got my fitness back and kept it – and I did that. I proved that I could get into that team.” Performances in the Europa League finally earned Wilshere his breakthrough into the starting Premier League side in December, and he has not looked back. Eventually, even Gareth Southgate had to welcome him back into the England fold, probably for his first appearance tomorrow since Euro 2016. “I never gave up hope that I could do it again,” Wilshere said. “I was in the squad 18 months ago and I didn’t get the chance. But I’ve always felt like it’s somewhere I belong and I want to be involved in this. “I had the vision going forward and now it’s down to me to stake my claim.”