Jack Wilshere has called for his Arsenal team-mates to toughen up and become more ‘street-wise’ otherwise face another disastrous season.
The 19-year-old midfielder, who has been recently been named Arsenal’s player of the season, has stated that he and his team-mates must learn from their mistakes in order to be successful. Wilshere said:
‘Arsenal’s a big club and we need to be winning trophies, and we need to win them to keep our big players. We need to sooner rather than later, 100 per cent, because it will be a disaster if we don’t win a trophy next season. We know that. The fans feel it. We feel it.’
‘We need to be more aware and have a bit more aggression. We’ve got some players that can do that but we have to go as a team. It’s no use just Robin Van Persie going because it looks like it’s just him having a go at the ref. If we all get round him…you just see the other teams do it and you think, “We need to do it as well”. Man United are the best at it. They get round the referee.’
‘We have to be more of a team, be more aggressive, show more authority and take control a bit more. I think we can be a bit too nice at times and some of our players would be the first to admit that. We’ve been too nice in defending. I’ve heard Bacary Sagna say this year we’ve been too nice and we have to be a bit more nasty, especially on set-pieces, because we’ve conceded too many goals from set-pieces.’
I completely agree with Jack. Arsenal do seem a bit soft when going in for tackles. The one thing that annoys me is that when we do go in for challenges, and there a bit hard, we get completely moaned at by every pundit on TV and opposing managers. Look at Wilshere against Birmingham this season, yes it was a bad tackle but everyone went on about it for weeks, but when Aaron Ramsey or Eduardo get their legs broken, no one says anything after the initial day.
We need to stop thinking about what the F.A are going to say and what opposing managers are going to say. We need to put our foot in a lot more, and show teams that we are not afraid of a bit of rough and tumble.
Wilshere also admitted that the failure to win a trophy this season will possibly lead to a few of our big-name players leaving the club, most notably Fabregas to Barcelona.
‘He’s our best player. In some of our games he has been our best player by a mile, and we need to keep our best players if we want to win things. He likes Arsenal, and I’m sure he wants to be at Arsenal. I’m sure if they can reach an agreement then he’ll want to stay.’
‘He’s the club captain and he needs to stay. He’s been over in England eight years, but Barcelona is his home. It’s hard for him so I can understand where he’s coming from.’
‘He’s been great this season and we hope he can be great next season. We know we need to keep up with the top four. We need to stay in the top four and push on for a trophy. We were so close this year.’
Wilshere’s thoughts will no doubt be echoed by many, if not all, Arsenal fans, and maybe prompt Wenger to sign someone decent in order to hold down players like Fabregas this summer.
With the players calling for improvement both on the pitch and in the transfer market, surely Wenger will actually listen this time and maybe, just maybe, we can be amongst the silverware next season.
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Sorry to disagree with Wishere but I’ve no time whatsoever for the Man Utd way of eyeballing the ref en masse. It’s their way of intimidating officialdom, particularly at OT, which has become the unpleasant side of their success.
I would like to see a clampdown on this sort of behaviour by FIFA rather than Arsenal jumping on this regrettable bandwagon.
For “Wishere” please read “Wilshere”. Sorry!
Agree with you nicky.
we dont need that.
I have seen so many things by other teams like kicking the ball againt a defender’s hands in the penalty box, bouncing into players and then falling down, slyly pushing them when sure ref cant see, the list goes on, and all we hear is “this is modern football”. It ruins the game for me anyway, and i do not like to see Arsenal do these things also, BUT if it seems to be allowed as part of the game, we would be foolish not to do it too, at least until the laws of the game are changed.
I agree with Wilshere to an extent, we do need to toughen up and be more physical, but I don’t think we should bully referee’s to give us decisions.