JACK THE LAD IS MUCH WISER NOW

Maestro Wilshere adapts his game

- Chris Dunlavy

JACK Wilshere doesn’t know if injuries changed his game, altered his gait, or forced him to become a different player to the swashbuckling kid who made his England debut at the age of 18.

“I got my first serious injury at 19,” shrugs the midfielder, who this week rejoined Bournemouth after six months without a club. “So it’s hard to say.”

The statement is delivered matter-of-factly. Wilshere is not a man to wallow in pity, even though he admits that recent months, training in the park and badgering his agent, have been amongst the toughest of his life.

“Alone, with a lockdown going on, you do have dark thoughts,” he says.

But there is no doubt that, at 29, Wilshere will never be able to fulfil the immense potential of his Arsenal pomp. He has suffered too much pain and missed too many minutes.

Potential

The ankle he broke at 19 left a legacy of niggles and side issues, exacerbated by a twice-fractured fibula.