According to the Evening Standard, Jack Wilshere will start the season with Arsenal’s under-23s as he steps up his recovery from the fractured leg he suffered at the tail end of last season while on loan at Bournemouth.
Arsene Wenger admitted earlier in the week that he’s still not sure what the future holds for the England international as the 25-year-old enters the final 11 months of his current deal.
The first step to ‘coming back to competition in a consistent way’ appears to be competitive with the Academy youngsters who are due to play Derby at St George’s Park on Monday and Manchester City at the Emirates on 21 August.
Wilshere was left out of Arsenal’s squad for the pre-season tour of Sydney, Beijing and Shanghai and didn’t feature in the Emirates Cup. Gunners fans did get a glimpse of him at the recent open training session, where he apparently looked sharp on the ball.
Jack isn’t the only midfielder set to miss the start of the Premier League season. Santi Cazorla remains sidelined with a long-term achilles problem, Francis Coquelin is nursing ankle ligament damage, while Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey both have knocks that kept them out of Sunday’s Community Shield victory over Chelsea.
That leaves Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Elneny, Alex Iwobi and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain as options in the centre of the park when Leicester visit tomorrow evening.Update –
Update – Ramsey, Mertesacker and Ozil all trained today and should be fit for tomorrow night.
Just wanna see him dorn the arsenal jersey again!!! can’t wait
Why?
He is Arsenal to the core!
There are a lot of people who are Arsenal to the core. The question is one of quality.
Jack wilshere is undoubtedly a quality player, jack wilshere keeps getting his legs broken. Its not a question of quality. Just put metal plates over his bones and he will be solid.
@anderson Why?
Oh Jack
Good news, I think. Let him build up his fitness there until he is ready for the 1st team… and then come back like the Jack vs Barca, sign a fresh deal and be our Gerrard.
A man can dream.
Jack and Xhaka lining up together..
A man can dream.
Xhakajack?
LacaXhakaJack?
Analysis Segment of Ancient Football Theory in Contemporary Practice (London, Common Era 4802) “The LacaXhakaJack Attack Axis is found to be particularly effective against the Parkthebus strategem.” “Certainly, almost as chuffing to watch the ÖzOxlexis Axis when all the players can manage to gel.” “It’s a shame that the axis you mention is correlated to developing Napoleonic syndromes in the main crux of the attack.” “It is not a position known to house modest players, no.” “In other news, is the potential for such an attack really worth 50 septillion space bucks? Stay tuned for next week’s epic showdown, in… Read more »
Understandably.
Assuming that both Ozil and Ramsey won’t be ready to take part in Leicester match, I’d start with Ox on the bench since he’s the only fit midfielder left, and Bellerin as RWB and Kolašinac as LWB.
If Ox is the only midfielder left then …… shouldn’t he be starting?
Elneny, xhaka?
Apart from Xhaka and Elneny of course, thought this was too obvious to point out.
Sell him already. Ox the brat, too.
Change your name. Or your attitude. Having both is a contradiction.
He doesn’t usually support arsenal, but when he does, he doesn’t
Looks like a Xhaka and Elneny partnership for tomorrow’s game. Let’s hope for a repeat of their Community Shield performances!
this is a great partnership for Leicester’s quick counter-attacking game. Elneny is so solid defensively and can do a lot of the running around for Xhaka. Xhaka’s passing is sublime too.
Alternatively just sit 10 yards deeper like everyone did last year so they can’t play the ball over the top for that feral chav Vardy to run on to. They won the league through everyone pushing up against them. Last season everyone took 10 yards and let them have the ball and they looked like going down for large portions of the season. More of the same tomorrow night I suggest.
I expect we’ll see Rob Holding (you know), or Monreal man-marking Vardy while Per plays the role of sweeper. Cech will need to be on his game and off the line quickly still though, as players like Ihenacho, Musa, and Mahrez are still quick off the wings on the counter attack.
Wenger: We’re alert every day of the transfer window.( Seri _ Lemar ….)29july
There is only one Arsene Wenger
#OneArseneWenger
We need to sell before we buy. And I wont be surprised if we left it late to make another signing.
I won’t be surprised if we don’t make another signing of note atleast. I’m expecting a youngster/someone not the level to challenge the first team spots straight away. The players that are of that level can be signed if we wanted to. I think a lot depends on whether some club is willing to pay good money for Jack. If not we may keep him and take a chance. He’d rotate in the place of xhaka with someone more defensive like coquelin I feel. He moves up the pitch more than xhaka so the Coq can protect the back line.… Read more »
The need for a new quality centre midfielder is obvious.
Yet one day before the first game of the season this hasn’t been addressed.
When people talked about change this summer, I knew that while Wenger remained in charge we would not be fully prepared for the start of the season.
Yet again this has proven to be the case.
Doomed.
Why do people always think buying is the solution. We have a great combo in Ramsey/Xhaka. We have lots of options as back up/rotation. Elneny, Oxlade, Jack, Maitland, Coquelin, maybe Santi for second hald of season. I know a couple of these guys will not be available for the complete season, but we will still have 2 or 3 players who can come in and do the job. Against smaller teams in home games, we can play a more attacking player next to Xhaka: Ramsey, Oxlade, Jack, even Iwobi, … We have a back 3 now to cover the counter… Read more »
Do you honestly think we can aim to match and defeat sides like Man City, Man United and Spurs regularly playing the likes of Coquelin, Elneny and Maitland Niles in centre midfield? Xhaka is progressing well into a top centre midfielder, however he is prone to suspension and also cannot be expected to play all the games. Ramsey, in a partnership with Xhaka sort of works, but given his injuries which have consistently plagued his career cannot be fully relied upon. When you look at our competitors, who boast the likes of Pogba, Matic, De Breuyne, Silva, Alli, Erikson etc,… Read more »
Pogba is bang average, Matic is bang average, De Bruyne is patchy …
Lol you basically listed their starters against ME and FC. who are the backups for these clubs? compare backups to backups if you want. Don’t try to make a argument comparing starters to backups.
If the transfer window shut BEFORE the start of the season I think things would be a lot different as all the late movement would have happened already. So relax and enjoy the return of real football. 🙂
Squad needs trimming but still thin…..Arsenal is complicated i guess
sounds a lot like my hair
If you can’t be optimistic on the advent of the first day [night] of the season, when can you be?
Great to see Jack getting minutes under his belt and good luck to him, wherever he ends up.
I wouldn’t at all be surprised, if Arsene lets Jack do a Phoenix, and rise from the ashes of his current arsenal career, Arsene will persevere if he thinks the talent is there,to me he was heir apparent to Santi, the skills are there though not at Santi’s level. One thing unfortunately we can guarantee is Ramseys hamstrings won’t last a season, all that runnyaboutness and fabled engine comes at a cost for Rambo. That being said Jack’s ankles are paper mache, so he’d probably be amazing given the chance and quality around him, sign a contract and proceed to… Read more »
Cech
Holding, Per, Monreal
Ox, Elneny, Xhaka, Kola
Welbz, Iwobi
Laca
That’s how I think we’ll lineup tomorrow. That’s assuming Özil and Ramsey are not fit to start.
Jack’s time with us is pretty much over. Finding a buyer, however, could be difficult given his injury record, and we might be looking to get him back to fitness, then loan him out so he can attempt to secure a permanent move elsewhere, much like we did with Diaby. The similarities end there, really. Diaby was a promising player who had his career ended by a clogger, whereas Jack’s career has stalled not just because of injury, but because of off-field antics. Good luck to him wherever he ends up- but I don’t see a way back for him… Read more »
If no buyer, probably going out on a loan.
Just difficult to rely on him given injury issue which is why no buyer in the first place.
He can also stay on the periphery of the squad and may get opportunity at some point in season but I suspect he needs to/wants to play more frequently which is the right thing.
Someone will take a punt on him if they do not get joy in market toward end of window because his apptitude is there. Just a fitness liability.
This is more like the beginning of the end
Jack is a gonner sadly. Move on folks. ?
Still a gooner
The market is understandably quiet now but I expect it to come alive on the final week when teams see what they really need or players get injured….or some prices go down a bit because team want to trim their squad
Exactly. You’ll see the scramble for panic buys after teams have problems on the opening few fixtures, and a few mega deals announced on the final day after they go through. Sometimes all people need is the realization of a deadline to get the proper motivation and release… the handbrake.
I have a good feeling that jack, if he stays, will be starting games by the end of the season. Its just time for his body to give him a break. No pun intended.
On the eve of a new season after being promised major changes it’s sad to see nothing has changed at the club. We didn’t get beat 5-1 twice by Bayern & finish 5th in the league because our only problems were the lack of a good centre forward and a left back. We’re still weak in central defence & in midfield & still weak in RW position assuming Sanchez stays and plays RW. Arsenal’s problem is life is far too comfortable for the players. So comfortable that supposed sportsmen like Jack, Coquelin, Elneny, Gabriel, Chambers, Gibbs & Jenkinson would rather… Read more »
*Assuming Sanchez stays and plays LW.