Bukayo Saka: Little Chilli

[mirrorstare]

10/10 today. For the first half hour he was the quality gap between two teams, then everybody else woke up but Saka never stopped.

 

[Badger_Revenge]

This kid just does the right things, is in the right spaces, makes the right decisions, wins the right physical battles, without ever being really flashy. He is a solid solid player.

 

[Geofranco]

Still don't think he should be playing. Thought he was going to be out till after the international break and then slowly allowed to find his feet with some substitute appearances. The things Saka has experienced in the last year are just crazy. He has made so much progress and so much expectation on his shoulder and he was never looked at as a generational prospect. Those are the expectations people have of him now.

 

[Xln]

Can we stop saying he is overrated or not good enough after a bad game, especially vs a champions league winning team?
You all know what he can do and what he can become so support our own hale end God. Thanks.

 

[CaseUteinberger]

Easily our best and most consistent player over some time now. Proper class the lad is! Seeing him play and how consistent he is I am reminded of Phillip Lahm from Bayern. Always there and always playing at a high quality! A player you can build around!

 

[freeglennhelder2]

Still don't think he should be playing. Thought he was going to be out till after the international break and then slowly allowed to find his feet with some substitute appearances. The things Saka has experienced in the last year are just crazy. He has made so much progress and so much expectation on his shoulder and he was never looked at as a generational prospect. Those are the expectations people have of him now.

Nothing about Saka gives the me impression that he needs wrapping up in cotton wool. The kid just gets his head down and gets on with it.

 

[Barry]

He was amazing in that match, can't judge much because of the level of opposition but still.

 

[IstraBalagina]

Can we stop saying he is overrated or not good enough after a bad game, especially vs a champions league winning team?
You all know what he can do and what he can become so support our own hale end God. Thanks.

He's overrated

 

[Hunta]

Looked good on the highlights, did he play on the left all game? My big concern with Ødegaard coming back was that they occupy the same areas on the right so it’s interesting if Saka moves to the left now.

 

[Camron]

 

[Pulp]

What a lovely picture! Reading that Athletic piece on Wilshere was really sad. What a great player he was until all the injuries. Hopefully he can return to football.

I thought Saka was great again yesterday. Great to see he is back after the Euros in a good way.

 

[Taylor Gang Gunners]

Can we stop saying he is overrated or not good enough after a bad game, especially vs a champions league winning team?
You all know what he can do and what he can become so support our own hale end God. Thanks.

 

[razörist]

What a lovely picture! Reading that Athletic piece on Wilshere was really sad. What a great player he was until all the injuries. Hopefully he can return to football.

I thought Saka was great again yesterday. Great to see he is back after the Euros in a good way.

Yo @Macho can you find me that athletic piece he’s talking about please? Thank you

 

[Hunta]

When Mr.Potter is in the club he’ll be using Mr.Saka as a LWB with license to roam according to my sources.

 

[Rimaal]

Yo @Macho can you find me that athletic piece he’s talking about please? Thank you

 

[Macho]

Yo @Macho can you find me that athletic piece he’s talking about please? Thank you

'My son says to me: "How come no club wants you?" How do I explain that to him?' - Jack Wilshere on his struggles, Arsenal and his future

Wilshere opens up on thoughts of retirement, his difficult search for a new club aged just 29 and Arsenal's current struggles

theathletic.com

Spoiler: ‘My son says to me: “How come no club wants you?” Jack Wilshere on his struggles, Arsenal and his future

David Ornstein 45m ago

It is a few days into the new Premier League season and if life had worked out as he anticipated, Jack Wilshere would be at training with his team-mates in preparation for their club’s next fixture.
But life has not gone to plan. Currently, there are no team-mates. There is no club. No next fixture.
“Being honest, I probably never thought I’d be in this position,” Wilshere acknowledges, solemnly.
“Today I was running around an athletics track and struggling to imagine I would be here at this point in my career. Everyone used to say to me, ‘(At) 28, 29… you’ll be at the peak of your career’. And I genuinely thought I would. I thought I’d still be playing for England, (that) I’d be at a top club.”

Instead, the boy who seemingly had the world at his feet, the great hope for a country desperately lacking such footballers, is without even an offer of employment at age 29.
How has it come to this for someone that made his Arsenal debut aged 16, outshone Barcelona three years later, won two FA Cups and wore the Three Lions in successive major tournaments?
That is a question Wilshere asks himself on a regular basis and while he knows the likely answer, it remains incredibly tough to stomach.
This is not, in his mind, how the story was meant to unfold.

---

Despite arriving at The Athletic’s London office wearing a black baseball cap that hides much of his face, Wilshere is instantly spotted by a passer-by.
The man, an Arsenal fan, reminisces about the midfielder’s spell at the Emirates Stadium and checks when he might be seen back on a pitch.

Wilshere emerges smiling but with a glint of sadness in his eyes, an emotion evident throughout a couple of hours in the 29-year-old’s company. He later mentions how encounters like that occur roughly 15 times per day for him, which may be frustrating but indicates the level of interest he generates.
Nowhere is that interest stronger than within Wilshere’s own family and particularly among his four children; Archie and Delilah from a previous relationship, Siena and Jack Junior with wife Andriani.
“My kids are at an age where they understand. Especially Archie, who’s nine. He’s actually having conversations with me, saying, ‘What about the MLS?’ or ‘Why aren’t you playing in La Liga?’

Wilshere with David Ornstein in The Athletic’s London office (Photo: Don Ma)

“He loves football. He knows everything about football. And it is difficult to explain to him. He’ll say to me, ‘How come no club wants you?’ I don’t know. But how do I explain that to him?
“They’ve got friends at school and you know what kids can be like, they can be quite brutal. ‘Why is your dad not working? Is he not good enough? Is he not good at football?’ Yeah, that’s tough.
“I’ve got two younger kids (Siena and Jack Jnr) who have never really seen me play football. When I go to training in the morning on my own and I kiss them and say, ‘I’m going training’, they don’t actually know what I do. They’re probably thinking, ‘Where’s he going? What is his job?’

“The older two remember the Arsenal days, they remember watching me play for England. In a way, it’s quite nice to have that — they can see it on YouTube and when I go out, people recognise me. The most difficult part is trying to explain when they ask, ‘Well, why don’t you just sign for a club in England?’ I’m like, ‘Well, no one wants me’, and they can’t really get their head around it.”

Occasionally, it crosses a line. Wilshere recalls the day when Archie came home from school upset after another pupil referred to his dad as “Jack Wheelchair”. Wilshere confronted the boy’s father about the incident, not because he was personally hurt but due to the impact it had on his son.
The mockery, of course, relates to the injuries that have blighted Wilshere’s career.

The problems began a decade ago when he damaged an ankle at the end of a campaign (2010-11) that featured 54 appearances across the ages of 18 and 19. Since then, there have been a catalogue of issues.
Although he fought back each time and there were many special moments along the way — like winning Premier League goal of the season award after an iconic effort against Norwich City in October 2013 and starring for England in Euro 2016 qualifying — his full potential has not been realised.

Leaving Arsenal for West Ham United in 2018 was supposed to provide the kickstart Wilshere required upon entering his theoretical prime years, however the reality proved markedly different and he agreed to exit the London Stadium by mutual consent 12 months before the end of a three-year contract having started only six league games for West Ham.

“Honestly, I should have never left,” Wilshere concedes, recalling the summer Arsenal appointed Unai Emery to replace Arsenal Wenger as manager after 22 years in charge. “That’s nothing against West Ham — it could have been anyone — but I shouldn’t have left Arsenal.

“I had a conversation with Arsène when I came back from Bournemouth (following a 2016-2017 loan, with 12 months left on his Arsenal terms). He said, ‘Look, you can leave. You’re not going to get a new contract here’. (But) Knowing Arsène the way I knew him and how much he rated me as a footballer, I knew if I got myself fit there were lots of games and I could get myself into that team.

“I wish I had that same mentality when I sat down with Emery and he said, ‘Look, there’s a contract on the table but you’re not in my starting XI’. I remember walking out angry, because I thought I was going to play — I proved myself the year before. I probably made a few rash decisions. I rang my agent and said, ‘That’s it, we need to leave’. I should have taken a few days, calmed down and thought to myself again, ‘I look around this midfield and back myself to get in’.”

After leaving West Ham, Wilshere trained alone until re-joining Bournemouth, by then a Championship club, on a short-term basis in January of this year. But his deal there was not extended and opportunities have since been scarce.

“I’d be lying if I said I’m not concerned; of course I’m concerned,” he says. “I was in this position when I left West Ham and it was horrible. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to go through that again’. I went to Bournemouth, played some games (17, with 11 starts) and I thought that would be enough to show people I am fit. But it clearly wasn’t, because I don’t have any offers. That definitely concerns me.”

Pre-season was completed with an unnamed club and while they spoke about him signing, ultimately it did not suit either party. Wilshere suffered another setback by testing positive for COVID-19, so he must now get back up to speed and prepare in the best way he can for any suitable openings. That is easier said than done and the longer the status quo persists, the more trying it becomes.

As a temporary silence falls in the room where we’re talking, it feels fair to ask if Wilshere’s time on the pitch could be drawing to a close.

“Yeah, that does cross my mind quite a lot,” he admits. “When you’re at a club and training every day, you wake up and if you’re not in a team, or even if you are in the team, you think, ‘Right, I’ve got to train well today. I need to show the manager I’m ready for the weekend’. I don’t have that.

“So I’m waking up in the mornings at the moment and I’m thinking, ‘Right, I need to go and train somewhere’. Normally it’s on my own… OK, I’ve been training with a club in pre-season but that’s finished now. I’m back to waking up, training on my own and finding that motivation.
“And the question I keep asking myself at the moment is: What am I doing it for?
“When I left West Ham and I was trying to find somewhere I thought, ‘Right, it’s going to come, it’s going to come’. But it’s not coming at the minute. And so now I’m waking up thinking, ‘I need to train today, but why do I need to train today?’ I want to find a club but is it going to happen?
“I had a conversation with my wife the other day. It was just before we went to bed and I said to her, ‘Look, I’ve got to train tomorrow but why am I training? Should I just try and focus on something else? Like, I can be a coach or I’ve just got on to the course to do my A Licence so I could start focusing on that’. She said to me, ‘No, you can’t. You can’t. You’re too good’.

“I said, ‘You say I’m too good but if I was too good someone would come and at least give me a chance, let me go and train there or let me try and prove myself to them’.
“At what point do I say, ‘Enough is enough?’ I don’t know, to be honest. I’ll keep going until…
“I said to my agent I don’t want to be in that position where I’m waiting and waiting and before you know it January comes and I’ve almost wasted another season. I’m not getting any younger and I don’t want that. I did that last year, so to do it again… I feel like I’d be wasting my time.”

---

So where does Wilshere — he of unquestionably elite ability and 34 England caps — go from here?
It is surprising to hear him suggest a move overseas as potentially the only credible option.
“I do feel a little bit like the door in this country has been shut on me. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because of the injury history and people getting references from places. I feel like that’s unfair.
“But it is what it is. I’ve said before that I’m open to going abroad. In fact, I probably want to go abroad. I want to try something different. I think it’ll be good for me, for my life, for my family. Have a fresh start somewhere where people, clubs, fans don’t think, ‘Oh, that’s Jack Wilshere. He’s going to get injured today’, or, ‘He’ll play five games and that’s it… waste of an investment’.

“The last time I had an injury was in January 2020. Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, his ankle, his ankle’. It wasn’t my ankle. I had a hernia, which is a standard injury. It was a 10-day turnaround and then unfortunately lockdown came. But I built myself up and had a really good base of fitness.

Wilshere in action against Barcelona (Photo: AMA/Corbis via Getty Images)

“Ever since we came back, when I was at West Ham, I haven’t missed a session. I had a period of time out of the game, where I trained every day, and then went to Bournemouth. I was available for every game, every training session. So I’m fit and ready but to prove that, you need to be given the opportunity to play games. I had that at Bournemouth and I didn’t even get a little knock.

“People might think I’m saying this just because I’m trying to find a club, but it’s the best I’ve ever felt in terms of my body. That’s me managing myself, going through injuries, doing certain rehab programmes and exercises that people told me to do, (which) didn’t work, only made me worse and further down the line I’d break down. I’ve had to go through that and learn to get to where I am today.
“If you told me five years ago to run around an athletics track, I’d have said, ‘No chance’, because of the surface. Now I know what I need to do. I feel really good and I’m being 100 per cent genuine when I say that. No aches or pains in my body. The only way to test that is by having the intensity of games, of playing against someone bigger and stronger than you.”

At no stage does Wilshere come across as seeking sympathy but when you listen to what he says and appreciate the challenges he is experiencing, it is impossible not to feel he deserves some.
“I’ve had a great career and still have the hunger inside of me,” he adds. “I’ve got a nice house, I’ve got four kids who are healthy and they go to good schools. There will be people who have to wake up at five in the morning just to put food on the table for their kids, so it’s a difficult one. The reality of it is I’m OK, but it still doesn’t stop me from having (depressive) thoughts or struggling with things.

“My next move is not about, ‘I need to make money’. It’s about the feeling I’ve got inside, and I’m not just talking about when I was a kid growing up, loving football. It was the early days at Arsenal when I used to love playing, love going out and playing at the Emirates. It’s about trying to get that feeling back of having something to fight for, having those ups and downs in football.

“I don’t know if I’ve been depressed, to be honest, because I’d like to think I’ve never really been depressed. But I’ve never had this feeling either, so I don’t know. I get this low, sinking feeling when I’m on my own, when I’m training alone, when you’re driving in the car on your own, where everything gets on top of you. I’m sure everyone gets that. Someone who has to work 12-hour days just to provide for their family is a different ball game, but I do get that low, sinking feeling.

“What I would say is I still have that hunger in me, somewhere deep in me, that all I want to do is play football. I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh look, poor Jack, he hasn’t got a club,(but) he’s made loads of money out of football, he gets to stay home with his kids’.

“When I wake up in the morning I want to look forward to going to training and being with the lads. I want to get back out on the pitch, especially with the fans now back. I’ve watched every single game that’s been on TV since the start of the season and I want to be part of that, I want that feeling of going out on the pitch, hearing the fans and just being able to play football again.”

---

Having grown up as a West Ham supporter, Wilshere joined Arsenal aged nine and is not only among their finest ever youth products but continues to hold a firm bond with the club’s followers.
Their decline has been increasingly painful for him to witness; Mikel Arteta’s men are 19th in the Premier League after two games and are not competing in Europe this season, even with the addition of a third UEFA tournament, after finishing eighth.

“It upsets me to see where they are,” Wilshere concludes. “One thing I will say is that I do think Arteta is the right guy. Obviously I see the news, stuff on social media… some people want him out. I think he’s trying to build something and I think it will take time.

“What hurts me the most is that when I was there and we dropped a little bit, we still got into the Champions League (by finishing in the top four). Then when we dropped out of the Champions League, it felt like a massive disappointment — ‘Oh my god, we need to be in Champions League, we need to be challenging’.

“Now, they’re not even challenging for that. They’re not even challenging for a Europa League place, really. But there’s a good group of young players, which I feel is probably the best since me, Aaron Ramsey and Kieran Gibbs came through. These players need a few years.

Carl Jenkinson, Ramsey, Wilshere, Gibbs and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain sign their contracts with Wenger in 2012 (Photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)

“The difference is, I came into a team of world-class players and they really helped me: Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, Samir Nasri. They were all brilliant and I could learn from them.
“That’s why it’s going to take a bit more time because there is more responsibility on these young players. I thought Emile Smith Rowe was the best player on the pitch at Brentford (in the season opener) but he’s going to take more time to develop because he hasn’t got the support system around him that I had.”

@boonthegoon @bingobob @Riou

Full article here bro

 

[dashsnow17]

Got confused for a second, thought why was Jason Statham in the Arsenal dressing room?

 

[yybecause]

bring Jack back

 

[Riou]

Weird that we haven't allowed Wilshere to train here, he constantly backs Arteta in the media too.

 

[razörist]

Full article here bro

Ly bro