All right Jack - Wilshere fit after injury jinx
Posted Wednesday, July 17, 2013 by The Sun
CHILD'S PLAY ... Wilshere shows skills at Hanoi soccer clinic
JACK WILSHERE has promised Arsenal fans he will be fully fit for the new season after his injury nightmare.
The Gunners’ midfield talisman hopes to return to action in tonight’s friendly against the Vietnamese national team in Hanoi.
Just eight weeks after clean-up surgery on a long-standing ankle problem, Wilshere, 21, is edging his way back to full fitness.
But he is convinced his problems are finally behind him and he can now focus on what promises to be a huge season for both club and country.
He said: “It’s so hard for me to sit and watch because I’m someone who wants to play every game. It was particularly tough at the end of last season, especially when I picked up another injury and came back and wasn’t playing like I can do.
“It’s really annoying when you cannot perform as well as you know you can.”
Wilshere’s woes began in the summer of 2011 when he suffered a stress fracture in his right ankle playing for England against Switzerland.
The injury sidelined him for 17 frustrating months and forced him to miss Euro 2012 and the London Olympics.
He returned to action last October but then hurt his left ankle against Spurs in March and struggled to get to the end of the season before the minor op on the original injury.
Wilshere added: “Now there are no long-term injury issues for me.
“They took the screws out of my ankle, which were causing me a problem and, hopefully, there will be no further issues.
“I’m a bit behind the other lads in terms of fitness because I wasn’t able to do much for six weeks after the operation.
“I will play some part during this tour of the Far East and, hopefully, I can have a good pre-season — which I haven’t done for the last two summers.
“Steve Bould said three years ago you should never take pre-season training for granted.
“It’s so important. It gives you a level of fitness for the whole season.
“This is such a big year for me. The aim is to play the full season for Arsenal and then, hopefully, go to the World Cup in Brazil with England.
“It’s still in our hands. We’ve got one really tough game in Ukraine and we’ll need to get a result there.
“But if we win our games at Wembley then we should be OK for Brazil.”
Wilshere’s main aim is to help boss Arsene Wenger end Arsenal’s trophy drought, which stretches back to 2005.
The brilliant midfielder believes summer signings are key to their ambitions.
England star Wilshere said: “Manchester United won the title last season yet it wasn’t the best United team we’ve seen.
“They won it because they had a big squad. If you look at their games, they sometimes rotated the whole back four.
“We’ve got a strong team at Arsenal and if we can add a few more to our squad then it can be a good season for us.
“We’ve got the Champions League, the FA and Capital One cups and the Premier League to contend with — it never stops.
“It’s impossible to play in every game. I’ve learned myself that if you try to it can only lead to injury.
“Everyone at the training ground has been talking about big-name signings.
“It would give us all such a massive lift. Not just the players but the staff and everybody connected to Arsenal.
“Everything has changed at the other top-four clubs. Alex Ferguson has gone, Chelsea and City have new managers so we have to set our targets high.
“We showed how good we can be during the run-in last season — we had our destiny put in front of us.
“We had to win those games to finish in the top four and we stood up to the challenge.
“Now the goal is to play with that kind of consistency all season. If we can, we can definitely win something.”
- Tag:
- Jack Wilshere
- Arsenal
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