Celebrating 20 years of Nike Football, Jack Wilshere is part of a lineage that includes some of the greats of the game including the likes of Ronaldo, Marco Materazzi and Paolo Maldini who have all competed in and won the game’s greatest prizes over the last two decades, and speaking as a member of the new Nike FC, the England midfielder talked to RWD Football about the frustrations of watching his club Arsenal from the sidelines, dealing with the expectations of a nation and being English on the pitch.

Having endured a frustrating spring with a foot injury suffered in England‘s friendly win over Denmark last month, it has proven to be a frustrating spring for the Arsenal playmaker, but with his club in action in the FA Cup semi-final this weekend and with a World Cup on the horizon, the rapidly healing star has reasons to be positive, and just weeks away from his return, Wilshere spoke about being powerless to help his club “It was tough at times. I went to every single home game.”

The 2011/12 season which Jack missed entirely through injury proved particularly difficult “It was quite a frustrating year because it was up and then it was down. Then it went to the final day against West Brom away and we had to win to secure fourth place but, I think you do learn a lot.” Wilshere continued “A year out of the game is a long time to be out. The game changes all the time, so you have to watch the game and learn. Otherwise, you’re just going to be left behind.”

During his long absence, Wilshere’s legend grew, as he was frequently referenced as something of a saviour of English football, a tag which has brought with it a level of pressure that he’s now come to accept “It’s brought pressure on me. I’m not sure it’s unwanted pressure. I think when you play at the highest level, there is pressure all the time.”

“Also a lot of fans pay good money and a lot of people come and watch like friends, family and the media in particular. That’s their job. So they have to analyse your performance and they have to have someone who they can sort of put up on a pedestal.” Wilshere offered “So I think especially in England, it may be a bit worse than in other countries, but there is always pressure, you have to just deal with it.”

The gifted midfielder and Nike FC star would like to see his England teammates given more respect for their technical skill though “I believe we don’t really play like other nations, but in the end we’ve got our own style. We’ve got our own way of playing. That’s England.” Jack continued “Just because we don’t play like Spain doesn’t mean we haven’t got a high level of technical ability. We’re changing our game all the time and we want to adapt it to a level where we are going to be able to win things at an international level. If that requires passing it around a bit more, then we’ll do it. But at the moment, we’re doing all right. We’ve got to the World Cup, so we’ll stick to our guns for the moment.”