RESULT! Career-defining seven days lie ahead for Jack as exit looms
JACK WILSHERE’S Arsenal future is still up in the air.
The next seven days will be crucial in deciding whether he stays or goes – and if he remains at The Emirates then this coming season will be the most vital of his career.
Will Arsenal offer him the proposed new deal? Will the midfielder accept it?
Wilshere is out of contract at the end of next season and manager Arsene Wenger has hinted another one will be offered, as it will be to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Kieran Gibbs, who are in a similar position.
As of yet, only silence surrounds the futures of all three but none more so than in the case of Wilshere, 25, the kid once destined for the top whose career has been blighted by injury.
He is currently recovering from another setback after he fractured his left fibula in April playing against Spurs while on loan at Bournemouth, where he was sent last season to rediscover his fitness. Or so Arsenal claimed. But loan deals are usually for youngsters anxious to impress or unwanted players.
Not Wilshere, once tipped by former England manager Fabio Capello as a future captain of the national side. His temporary migration south was supposed to resurrect his stuttering career.
But after proving his fitness, it was first his form and then injury that hindered his appearances at Dean Court.
Arsenal fans will be dismayed to hear he is being pursued by newly promoted Premier League side Huddersfield Town.
At one stage, the England midfielder was set to be the country’s greatest talent since Paul Gascoigne.
However, he has failed to make good on his early promise and is now faced with some very serious decisions this summer.
Quite a few football fans and pundits believe the academy graduate (below) will leave Arsenal in search of a fresh start.
Although Wilshere managed 27 games of football last season, his best return since 2010-11, he struggled to make an impact with goals and assists.
While this is not the only measurement of an attacking midfielder, it was hugely disappointing he did not make much impact in the final third.
Arsenal return to training this week before launching on a hectic four-week pre-season programme that takes them to Australia and China, where they play Bayern Munich and Chelsea.
They then return home to compete in The Emirates Cup ahead of facing Chelsea again in the Community Shield.
All these games could pass Wilshere by and he will be concerned to learn Wenger has admitted he wants to cut his 33-man squad to bring in new names.
The Arsenal No.10 is expected to be the first player called in for talks next week but it remains to be seen if he actually wants to sign a new deal, with first-team football his priority.
Whether that will be on offer at The Emirates remains to be seen given that he was allowed to leave on loan last season.
Even before Wenger dips into the transfer market, he has Granit Xhaka, Francis Coquelin, Mesut Ozil, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Mohamed Elneny, Santi Cazorla and Aaron Ramsey at his disposal when it comes to midfield options.
It may be time to hit the road, Jack.
Only three seasons earlier, the France star had inspired the Gunners to a seemingly impossible feat – winning the Premier League title without losing a single game.
Yet, by the time of his transfer to the Nou Camp on June 25, 2007, Arsenal were starting to look a pale, diluted version of that remarkable history-making line-up.
The £16million cut-price deal, which was the final nail in the Invincibles’ coffin, shocked everyone.
Except our regular Daily Star Sunday readers. Because we had revealed five months earlier that Wenger was planning to sever ties with the Gunners’ greatest-ever goal machine.
In fact, the real surprise was that Henry had not gone the previous summer when he was the subject of two world record £50m bids – from Barcelona and Real Madrid.
The Arsenal skipper only had eyes for the Catalans. However, even he did not have the heart to desert the north Londoners after defeat to Barcelona in the 2006 Champions League Final.
The 2-1 loss in Paris was particularly painful as Arsenal played most of the game a man down and led until the 76th minute.
“If we’d had 11 men, I believe we’d have battered them,” said the prolific hitman.
Emotion got the better of Henry that May evening and he soon announced he would not be swapping the Premier League for La Liga after all.
Leaving the Gunners without conquering Europe was too hard.
Henry made very few rash decisions on the road to becoming, arguably, the finest, most spectacular finisher to have graced English shores.
Fair to say, though, his pledge to ‘stay with Arsenal for life’ that summer proved a rare exception. But who in their right mind back then could have envisaged Wenger and Henry failing to bag a third league title together?
Or that the long- time Arsenal boss’ championship-winning formula would still elude him to this day?
The ex-Juventus forward took a few months to settle after his £11m arrival in August 1999. But once he did, the Highbury masses knew that Wenger had unearthed another gem from across the channel.
Henry did not just follow in the footsteps already laid by Patrick Vieira and co.
His total haul of 175 league goals for Arsenal eclipsed all before him – and will continue to set him apart for years to come.
In all competitions for the north London side, he found the net 226 times.
The goals came from every position and angle going, many of them defying belief.
Those of us fortunate enough to have seen it in the flesh will never forget Henry’s individual effort against Tottenham in November 2002. He burst from inside his own half, mesmerised a stream of opponents i n dizzying f ashion before calmly converting.
That one solo strike summed up the inimitable style and breathtaking flair of the man. Trophies rained down on Highbury, the accolades began apart f r o m Weng e one epitomised that Arsenal side more than
The two-time PFA Play twice runner-up in the B to his manager’s dismay
Disputing the decision former Monaco starlet planet, Wenger told me there with the all-time with Pele and Maradona
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But barely a year later ground bust-up betwee Henry being axed agains
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Had the superstar o outgrown the club?
Henry, 29 at the time, when he said: “Because fact that I was captain screaming for the b sometimes give i HOLA! Barcelona chief Joan Laporta (left) unveils Henry in 2007