JACK WILSHERE EXCLUSIVE: I always push myself to get better but I need to be fitter... and my scoring record is just a joke

FOOTBALL FREESTYLE SERIES

Watch Jack Wilshere launch MailOnline's brand new Football Freestyle series by showing off his silky skills

Jack Wilshere has enormous thighs, but it is only when you see him up close that you fully appreciate a pair of pins that would have rivalled Stuart Pearce in the days when shorts were actually short.



‘That’s why it is so difficult to get him off the ball,’ whispers Wilshere’s older brother, Tom, as we watch him performing tricks for a new TV commercial.

Right now, however, it is probably more important that the younger Wilshere is also in possession of some fairly broad shoulders.



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Main man: Jack Wilshere, a brand ambassador for Topps Match Attax, is ready to up his goalscoring rate from Arsenal's midfield

It was only this month, after all, that the 21-year-old was all but written off as an international footballer. One slightly ineffective display against Ukraine and England’s answer to Xavi, as he has so oft been called since impressing against Barcelona in January last year, apparently had no right to be in the company of Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard.



Unfair? ‘It probably was,’ he says with a wry smile. ‘But it goes with the territory. One match and suddenly I’m not ready to play international football. I’m not any good any more. I didn’t take much notice of it.’

He really doesn’t seem that bothered, even if he was probably irked by the fact that one or two ex-professionals stood among his critics. People he felt should have known better.

But, given the chance, he might point to a couple of factors that were overlooked by those watching England labour to a goalless draw in Kiev.

First, the tactics England manager Roy Hodgson admits to employing did not play to the strengths of a creative, attacking midfielder. By asking England’s defenders to respond to Ukraine’s pressing game by knocking it long to Rickie Lambert, Hodgson was ignoring an individual of Wilshere’s talent.

Then there was the issue of Wilshere’s fitness. He readily accepts he might have been a bit off the pace, but with good reason after missing the bulk of another pre-season because of an operation on an ankle problem that kept him on the sidelines for 17 months.

‘We needed a result that night,’ he says in reflecting on Hodgson’s approach to a game that concluded with England still in control of their World Cup qualifying group.

‘We played to get the result we needed. It’s great playing Brazil in a friendly and knocking the ball about but international football is also about going away to these kind of places with 70,000 opposing fans and getting the result you need. That’s what we did that night.

‘As for me, I’m still coming back. I still need games to reach the fitness levels I’ve achieved in the past.

‘In the summer I needed to change the pins in my ankle. The old ones were rubbing against the scar tissue and making it feel uncomfortable.

‘The ankle’s not worrying me now. It was bothering me last season. You’d get to a point you wouldn’t want to cross because of the pain. But it’s done now. It feels fine. I just need to get my full fitness back. My numbers aren’t quite back to where they should be.’

Earning his stripes: A doting Wilshere holds his baby daughter Delilah Grace

Underwhelming? Wilshere put in an under-par display in England's midfield against Ukraine

Lynchpin: Wilshere has become an integral member of Arsene Wenger's Arsenal midfield

The numbers will come, even if he says nobody’s numbers — in terms of distance covered — match Aaron Ramsey’s at Arsenal. ‘That boy just runs all day,’ he says admiringly.

But the one strength that never left Wilshere is that ability on the ball. That confidence, that composure, that continental skill that so excites us and, let’s be honest, has us putting him on the same pedestal once created for Wayne Rooney and Paul Gascoigne. It is from these players that England demands some magic; something that might just turn a mediocre team, supporters dare to dream, into a major international force.

It really isn’t healthy. ‘It doesn’t worry me,’ he says. ‘I saw it happen with Rooney. I remember watching him at 17 or 18, playing in the Euros, and all the excitement that was around him.

‘It’s not just me. There are a few players coming through who are hopefully going to become top, top internationals. Lads like Phil Jones.



Goalscoring midfielder: Wilshere admires team-mate Aaron Ramsey's commitment to the Arsenal cause

Wonder kid: Wilshere recalls the pressure placed on a young Wayne Rooney (centre) at Euro 2004

‘If it brings a certain responsibility that’s something you have to deal with. You just have to concentrate on your game and focus on trying to improve.

‘But for the younger lads it also helps having so much experience in the side. Rooney’s been there and done it. He’s already got 70-odd caps. And we’ve got three other players with 100 caps. I don’t feel I have to shoulder too much responsibility when I’m in a midfield with Gerrard and Lampard.’

He relishes the opportunity to play alongside them, just as he is more than prepared to shoulder that burden of responsibility. Why else would he take the No 10 shirt at Arsenal the moment Robin van Persie left for Manchester United?

‘I used to joke with Robin that when he left the shirt was mine,’ he says. ‘It was the number I wore in the youth teams and in the reserves. No 10 is the job I want; in the middle of things, moving the ball forward. I’d like to score more goals. Right now my goal ratio is embarrassing. But my job is to make things happen, be creative.’

Centurion: Ashley Cole Still going: Frank Lampard Stalwart: Steven Gerrard

Wilshere has scored five times in 105 Arsenal games and has yet to get on the scoresheet in 10 matches for England.

Fabio Capello thought he was England’s answer to Claude Makelele. ‘That was a new one,’ he says, again with a wry smile. ‘I’d never heard that before. Hey, you have to have that as part of your game if you’re going to be a box-to-box midfielder.

‘You need to be able to defend. It’s massively important, and at Arsenal we’ve sometimes been guilty of forgetting that. When we don’t have the ball we sometimes lose a bit of concentration. But Makelele was the best in the world at that job, and I don’t think I’m that kind of player.’

He is a product of Arsenal. Naturally gifted, of course. But a player developing pretty much the way Arsene Wenger must have envisaged him doing when he first invited him to train with the senior players seven years ago.

‘I was 14,’ recalls Wilshere. ‘A lot of the senior players were missing. I forget why. Perhaps they’d had a game the day before. But Thierry Henry was out there and I was just thinking, “Wow”. One or two other senior players were there, too.

‘But it was still a serious session and, even though I was only 14, Arsene still took me to one side and put me right on something I was doing.

‘I think it was the first time he had ever spoken to me. He was commenting on my game, telling me what I should do. I play the way I do because it’s the Arsenal way. It’s the way we play the game; keeping it on the floor, passing the ball, playing it through the middle. It was the way it was done in that first training session and it was the same when I did my first pre-season with the senior players as a 16-year-old. And from the day I moved into the first-team dressing room, on my 17th birthday (January 1, 2009).

Helping hand: Wilshere says he learned a great deal from former team-mate Cesc Fabregas

Outbound: Samir Nasri (left) left the Emirates for Manchester City as Fabregas joined Barcelona in 2011

I'll have that! Wilshere inherited the No 10 shirt after Robin van Persie (left) joined Manchester United

‘Cesc (Fabregas) was there, Nasri had just come in; players like Toure, Van Persie. Lots of very good players technically. Cesc was probably the player who helped me the most. He’d been in my situation; a young player in the squad trying to break into the midfield.’

Together they would appear for Arsenal in what, thus far, is the highlight of Wilshere’s career; the night that first invited those comparisons with Spain’s finest; the night in February 2011 when Arsenal beat Barcelona in the Champions League.

‘I watch a lot of football and going into the game I had some ideas as to how I might try to handle their midfield.

‘But then you’re standing alongside them in the tunnel, looking at players who had just won the World Cup. I was nervous walking alongside them on to the pitch. At that point you just want to get that first touch in. The first touch in any game is important to a player but this was a bit different. I didn’t want to lose the ball.



Fair comparison: Wilshere (right) put in a stunning performance when Arsenal beat Barcelona in February 2011

‘I think my first touch was good. I took the ball from Clichy and went past Xavi. That was alright. But it all happened so fast. I remember walking back after Arshavin scored. It was the first chance I had to really start taking it in. At the end I swapped shirts with Xavi and I got Cesc to get me Messi’s shirt as well. Afterwards I tweeted the picture.’

Wilshere tweeted another picture yesterday — his daughter, Delilah Grace, who was born on Thursday. He and his girlfriend Lauren have a two-year-old son, Archie.

As he said, he is an avid watcher of football. ‘I saw Real Betis on TV last night,’ he says. ‘It was either that or EastEnders. Real Betis was always going to win.’

I suggest he is something of a rarity in the modern game, recalling an interview when Harry Redknapp bemoaned the fact so few of his then Tottenham players had watched a Spanish football game the night before.

‘It’s not unusual in the Arsenal dressing room,’ he says. ‘The French players are always talking about their league. Arteta is the same as me. He’ll watch anything. He’s always coming in, talking about it. Cazorla’s the same.’

So they knew all about the latest addition to the dressing room: a certain Mesut Ozil.

In the know: The Arsenal squad knew all about new boy Mesut Ozil, having watched him play for Real Madrid



‘It was a bit frustrating we had to wait as long as we did (because of the international break) to see him,’ says Wilshere. ‘But he’s going to fit right in. He’s an excellent player, and I thought on his debut against Sunderland he gave a near-perfect performance.

‘Training’s even more fun as well now. When we play boxes, it’s fair to say the guy in the middle struggles to get the ball.’

With Ozil, however, comes a rise in expectation. Wenger has even suggested his future as manager will be determined by the success the team enjoy now that the club have parted with more than £40million to recruit the Germany midfielder.

Is Wenger putting too much pressure on himself? ‘No,’ replies Wilshere. ‘The players know it’s time we did something as well.

Pressure's on: Arsene Wenger believes he should be judged on the success of his current squad

Humbling: Christian Benteke (left) led the Aston Villa to an opening-day win at the Emirates, but Arsenal have won all four of their other Premier League games since, with Olivier Giroud (right) finding form up front



‘We don’t pay too much attention to what the manager has said. Obviously we read it, see it on the news. But it’s our job to concentrate on what we are doing and try to win something. We know where he is coming from, but there’s no real time to stop and think about it when there are so many games.

‘The fact is, that setback against Aston Villa on the opening day aside, we have started the season pretty well. We’re in a decent position, there’s some confidence in the squad. We know we will create chances. The key is to reduce the opportunities we give the opposition to hurt us. We need to keep working on that discipline.’

The same could be said of an England team that might need to beat both Montenegro (Oct 11) and Poland (Oct 15) to secure qualification for the World Cup in Brazil.



Get in! Wilshere celebrates scoring against Montpellier in the Champions League

In training: Wilshere and Arsenal prepare for Saturday's trip to Swansea in Friday's training session

‘It is not going to be easy,’ he says. ‘I only have to talk to Wojciech Szczesny and Lukasz Fabianski to realise that. The Poles are as determined to win as we are. But I’m confident we can finish the job. I didn’t play in the two draws against Poland and Montenegro but our players know what’s at stake.

‘It’s a World Cup in Brazil. It’s the ultimate, really. The stage every player wants to appear on.’

A stage Wilshere would suggest he is more than ready for.

Jack Wilshere is brand ambassador for the 2013-14 season of Topps Match Attax, the official Barclays Premier League football trading card game.

Match Attax Premier League 2013-14 features all the latest football stars alongside brand-new game play.