10: Jack Wilshere, Arsenal, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, Barclays Premier League 2010/11 Collector Binder

Today Richard Allinson takes us back to a brief moment when a product of the Arsenal youth system was believed to be the future of English football. All football fans are guilty of trying to predict the future (bet in play, NOW!) and we’ve even had a go at it on these very pages. That being said if any of us really had a clue we would have already made our millions by now. It’s also unlikely that any of us would have called today’s subject being snapped in a swimming pool snogging Joe Hart. Over to Rich with the rest.

England’s run to the Euro 2020/21 final already seems like a distant memory. Although tactically astute, the sides that Gareth Southgate picked throughout the tournament were often hard to predict, but they were more logical than those selected by the journalists that went all Mystic Meg in the years running up to the tournament. 

Take, for example, the BBC who in 2015 named their predicted side which was quite accurate, but randomly included the uncapped Nathan Redmond. The Independent’s speculative selection from 2013 really was rather bold as it included: Jack Butland, Chris Smalling (at right back), Nathanial Chalobah, Phil Jones, Jordan Ibe, Wilfried Zaha, Daniel Sturridge and Chuba Akpom, with Gary Neville as the manager. You can maybe forgive them for not picking Bukayo Saka as he was twelve years old when the article was written, but still, they had an absolute melt. 

One name that did invariably crop up in all these teams is Jack Wilshere. Yeah, I was surprised it wasn’t Chuba Akpom too. It was no great shock to see Wilshere’s name appear, as when he first broke through at Arsenal, it really looked like he was going to be the mainstay of the England midfield for the next decade. In September 2008, aged only 16 years and 256 days, he made his Premier League debut for the Gunners becoming their youngest league player in the process. After a successful loan spell at Bolton Wanderers, he made his England debut against Hungary in 2010 which saw him become his country’s tenth youngest player. His breakthrough season for Arsenal came in 2010/11 where he racked up 49 appearances across all competitions, earning him the club’s Player of the Year award as well as the PFA Young Player of the Year trophy and a place in the PFA Team of the Year. 

However, it was from here on in that Wilshere’s rapid ascent hit the skids as injuries took hold. A stress fracture ankle injury in 2011/12 pre-season saw him miss the whole league campaign and Euro 2012. Indeed, it took seventeen months for him to recover from the injury, with him finally taking to the field again in October 2012. Over the next three and a bit seasons he featured regularly for the Gunners, but even then, various injuries hampered his progress. He moved on loan to Bournemouth for the 2016/17 season and played 29 games before a broken leg ended his time on the south coast prematurely. Wilshere was to stay with Arsenal for the 2017/18 season and played 38 games in total before being released and joining West Ham United on a three-year deal. 

His time in East London was cut short when after only nineteen games in two seasons he was released in October 2020. The club blamed injuries, but Wilshere has said that even when he was fit, he wasn’t selected. He subsequently went on to join Bournemouth in January 2021, this time on a permanent deal, with the club now playing in the Championship. However, in May of the same year he was released after seventeen appearances. After eight months out the game, he finally found a new club in the Danish Superliga with AGF in February 2022. On signing for the club, Wilshere commented "I am in a place in my career where I need to get started again after a difficult period, AGF offered me that opportunity. For that I am very grateful, and I will do everything I can to live up to the expectations." He is reported to be on £5,000 a week with his new club, which is likely to be a lot less than what he could have got at some nondescript mid-table Championship side, and you have to take your hat off to him for going out on a limb to relaunch his career.

At aged 30 he still has a decent few years left in him, but even if he retired now he could be considered to have had a very good career. After all, he played 197 games for Arsenal, won the FA Cup twice, and got 34 caps for his country. However, according to Transfermarkt, he also spent a total of 1470 days out injured across 18 different spells. That is the equivalent of four years, which is really quite mental. Unfortunately, to many, Wilshere’s career is a case of ‘what might have been’. Who knows he might have scored a penalty in the shoot-out against Italy. So might have Chuba Akpom for that matter.