Last night gave us the strongest indication yet that Jack Wilshire is going to be one of the stars of the future. He dictated play in the first half and again came to prominence in the first period of extra time. Arsenal’s comfortable victory was predominately down to the maturity and expertise of an 18 year old with only 7 league games under his belt.
The evening had started rather shockingly with Arsene Wenger actually putting out a strong team in the Carling Cup; only time will tell whether this was due to the opposition or him taking the competition seriously. The away side soon got into their stride and dominated the first half with Spurs barely able to string 3 passes together. Redknapp changed things at half time and the game was all square after Fabianski let Keane’s shot go through him; this must surely be the last time he is seen in an Arsenal shirt.
Once again Wilshire began to stamp his authority on the midfield and the result became inevitable early in extra time. It is quite remarkable that an 18 year old can dictate play so efficiently and effortlessly; he even remained calm after Spurs decided the only way to stop him was by fouling him. The ability to find space and move effectively into it is something that is innate and will only improve with age. I for one hope he ends up playing further up the pitch where his creativity will come to the fore. Arsenal spent the entire summer waiting for Fabregas to make a decision on his future, from last nights evidence there seems little reason to worry.
Good Piece, I personaly think the young Jack is a different animal than the young Cesc was and is.
ReplyDeleteWhile both are clearly dominant footballers in the middle of the park. The young cesc was not as dynamic an attacker as Jack is. I'm not getting carried away and saying Jack is better than Cesc was at 18 but he has a different dynamic that is only comparable in as much as they both are amazing talents in central midfield. 18 year old Cesc was becoming a master of possession and had awareness of the whole team around him at all times. When coupled to his exceptional first touch this translated as an ability to retain the ball anywhere on the pitch in a crowd and exploit a team mates attacking run with a Key pass when most other players would have missed the run or misstimed the pass needed. I would also suggest that it was a couple more years before Cesc added a Direct Goal threat to his attributes (by direct goal threat i mean Shooting from range or penetration into the box)
Jacks style on the other hand is more comparable to a Maradonna/Messi when playing in the Attacking Midfield position (not where he is currently opperating in the league), I'm not suggesting he is at their level or will be (although i'm optimistic) i'm just demonstrating a style with the best exponents of it. When Jack is in possession of the ball in the opponents half his first instincts are to run at the defence admittedly he has been coached well to suppress these instincts on the majority of occassions to allow them to be more effective when used. But when unleashed his low centre of gravity/Balance and the burst of pace he possesses allows him to surprise his opponent in a 1 on 1 situation this pulls the opponents back line out of position opening up space for a shot from the edge of the box(of which he is very capable),a short assist pass or a one two into the area to allow a short range shot.
I don't belive Jack will ever posses the ability to provide the consistant 20 yard eye of the needle pass under pressure that Cesc has made his trademark. I think the good news for Arsenal and England though is that Jack has a different but no less effective range of tools to open up and punish defences.