Jack needed his Bourn ultimatum
LESS than four weeks after Jack Wilshere’s 21st birthday, Thomas Vermaelen limped out of a league match against West Ham and for the first time, the Arsenal captain’s armband was passed to the midfielder.
“Of course he will be one of the leaders of this club – in fact he already is,” crowed Arsene Wenger.
Three and a half years later, when the Arsenal manager’s lopsided transfer policy made him the eighthchoice player in his position, Wilshere realised he needed to get away and has moved to Bournemouth on a season-long loan.
Another window has closed with Wenger failing to sign the world-class striker he so desperately needs to mount a sustained title bid.
With just 17 goals last season at a rate of one every three hours, Lucas Perez is even less prolific than Olivier Giroud.
Yet just behind that frontman there is a whole, ahem, arsenal of talent waiting to provide the ammunition, leaving Wilshere with very little prospect of a look-in.
Since Wilshere fought his way into the first team at the tender age of 16 years and 256 days – still the youngest player to play a league game for the Gunners – he has seen a trail of players usurp him in the pecking order.
Aaron Ramsey had got into the squad slightly before him, but since then the Wales international has been joined by Alex OxladeChamberlain, Francis Coquelin, Alexis Sanchez, Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazorla, Mohamed Elneny and, most recently, Granit Xhaka in a congested midfield battle for places.
Having witnessed that debut in 2008 at Blackburn, his six-minute cameo was little more than a note in the record books. However, during a loan spell at Bolton, you could see the feisty yet skilful battler slowly grow in confidence and stature.
Wilshere was undoubtedly a top-class player.
So the decision to hand him the armband that day in January 2013 was a reward for a string of good performances back at the club he had joined as a nine-year-old, not a favour given on a whim but a measure of the regard in which he was held by all at the Emirates.
Then injuries struck. A whole raft of them, culminating in an ankle problem on the back of a broken left fibula that meant Wilshere hardly kicked a ball last season.
Nevertheless, such is his talent that Roy Hodgson not only saw him as worth a place on the plane for Euro 2016, but ultimately made him his go-to man when he needed to find a spark of life amid his underperforming England squad.
A year earlier, he had scored two memorable longrange strikes in Slovenia. But in France, his performance was well below par. Indeed, the most memorable contribution he gave was at England’s leafy media headquarters in Chantilly, where he spoke with honesty of his struggles.
“Maybe when I have been injured it is hard to think that I am going to get back and be at the level I was,” he said. “Of course you have those dark days, especially when you have a long-term injury. But now I’m back I take everything as it comes.
“I do what I can. I am in the gym most days, training on the pitch, working on my weaknesses and trying to get better and better every day. I am not young any more but I am not old, so I have still got years ahead of me to try to improve and prove to people I can be that player.”
The clock was ticking louder than he realised, however, and being dropped from the England squad by new manager Sam Allardyce was the wake-up call. Crisis talks with Wenger saw the 24-year-old granted the chance to head off on loan.
It is a further measure of his talent that 22 clubs reportedly expressed an interest, swiftly whittled down to the three leading contenders: Bournemouth, Crystal Palace and Roma.
The fact he plumped for the Cherries is perhaps his determination to fulfil Wenger’s prophecy of leadership at Arsenal. They share a footballing philosophy, after all.
Yes, having to go on loan again is a big thing to come to terms with, but perhaps this is a chance for Wilshere to finally show he can muster the physical fortitude to match his unquestioned mental strength.