Jack Wilshere hopes for change of fortune back at Bournemouth
Appropriately enough, the call summoning Jack Wilshere from the footballing wilderness came on Christmas Eve. For nearly three months he had been without a club: kicking his heels at home in lockdown, training alone in a local park. That was when his old team Bournemouth got in touch.
The club have fallen from their pedestal in recent years, and in many ways the same could be said of Wilshere, who has signed a contract until the end of the season.
The question is whether anything remains of the midfielder who announced himself so thrillingly for Arsenal
and England a decade ago, but whose most recent spell at West Ham saw him play only 19 games over two frustrating years before his contract was terminated.
Despite dropping down to Championship level, and having endured a litany of injuries over the years, Wilshere certainly has no qualms about his ability to deliver.
“The most important thing for a footballer is that you believe in yourself,” he says. “And I’ve never, ever doubted myself as a player. The day you haven’t anything got to prove, you should give up.”
Eventually, Wilshere gave up trying to prove himself to David Moyes, his manager at West Ham. And while there are no hard feelings at how things ended at his boyhood club, he also contends that he “didn’t want to sit there on big wages and just rot” on the sidelines. He emerged from the first lockdown fit and hungry, only to find himself cast adrift from a team that demanded a more combative, ball-winning presence in central midfield.
“I’ve got nothing bad to say about West Ham,” Wilshere insists. “I have friends there, I grew up a West Ham fan and am very grateful to them for allowing me to leave when I had a year left on my contract. It didn’t work out, and you don’t need to be a footballing genius to work out why. It’s my style of play: playing for Bournemouth in this league, they are a big team who like to