Arsenal must avoid allowing Saka to go down the same road as Wilshere

Jack Wilshere was the toast of the town when he first broke into the Arsenal first team as a teenager.

We cannot forget how the Englishman ran the show from midfield in several games, most memorably against Barcelona.

However, he left Arsenal in 2018, having had an injury-ravaged final few years at the Emirates.

It seems that the kicks he was getting from very early on and perhaps not allowing his legs to rest caught up with him and caused injury problems later in life.

The Englishman gave an interview to Jamie Redknapp in the Daily Mail recently and he admitted that he should have played less as the Physios had advised him at the start of his career.

He told the former Liverpool midfielder: “I remember having conversations with the physios in my first year in the Arsenal team. They were like: ‘Look, you’re playing a lot…’ I told them: ‘I want to play.’

“I was living the dream. I was 19, playing for Arsenal. We were challenging for the Premier League, in the Champions League. No one was going to tell me I needed a rest. That’s one of my biggest regrets – I wish I’d listened to physios a little more, learned more about my body.”

Saka has now emerged as the new poster boy at the Emirates. Perhaps the teenager is being overused too.

If there is something we can learn from Wilshere’s experience is that too much football too soon can be a problem later in life.