Evidence of Jack Wilshere being less than a wholesome individual continue to pile up, with his next incident being an elbow attempt at the head of Shinji Kagawa during Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat against Manchester United.
During an Arsenal attack, Kagawa and Wilshere were running together towards the United goal – Kagawa to cover the English midfielder, Wilshere to try and set himself loose. Instead of doing what a normal, non-violent footballer would, Wilshere simply tried taking Kagawa’s head off with an elbow, luckily not getting any reaction from the referee or his assistants, busy watching something else or simply interpreting that as a shrug on the shirt of a shove.
Something nasty is going over Wilshere this year, and it’s not just off the pitch. Losing that golden boy label might have something to do with it. Arsenal brought in Mesut Ozil to take over, while Aaron Ramsey, the wonderkid who preceded Wilshere at Arsenal, is finally living up to his potential. Wilshere has been pushed to a wider role instead of being in the middle and pulling all the strings. To him, it feels like he was demoted. Maybe he was.
Instead of trying to show on the pitch that there’s more to him than what we’ve seen recently, Wilshere prefers venting out his anger at underplayed Japanese midfielders. Lets not be too naive: One elbow to the head doesn’t make someone the ultimate villain. Sometimes things like this can happen to the nicest of fellas. However, Wilshere’s on and off the pitch behavior this season points towards him being on the wrong path, which might eventually see him end up with a permanent role on the bench.