Jack Wilshere is out injured at the moment but is expected to return to the Arsenal squad in a couple of weeks. The terrier has been playing as a defensive midfielder for England although Arsene Wenger considers him to be more of an attacking force in the Premiership. The Gunners already have a plethora of midfielders though and Jack may find it much harder to get some games when he returns, and one of those positions seems to be certain to be Francis Coquelin’s to lose while he stays fit.
And Jack seems very happy that the Frenchman has made the defensive midfield position his own. “I’ve played with Francis in midfield since I was 15,” Wilshere said in the Star.
“I used to wind him up by saying, ‘Listen, you do all the dirty work and the tackling and then let me have the ball!’ But the thing is, he loves that side of it.
“He’s really good at it, he’s tenacious, the way he always goes after the ball. Not everyone has that ability to win the ball back and to be aggressive.
“I thought it was strange how he didn’t break through before because I’ve always felt that he could be the one to play in that position for us.
“I think there’s much more to come from him as well. He’s a great defensive midfielder, but going forward he was always a threat in the youth team. I think he can score goals too.”
Coquelin is yet to score for Arsenal, and to be fair the fans don’t really want to see him bombing forward when his job is to protect the Gunners defence, but if he DID start scoring goals as well it wouldn’t take long for him to catch Jack Wilshere’s underwhelming total of just five League goals for the Gunners in his whole career!
So that is one position that Jack is unlikely to be returning to, but who on earth could Wenger drop to fit Wilshere back in the starting XI?