Has Jack Wilshere been harshly treated?

Internationally the past few weeks have not been great ones for Jack Wilshere, first he was dropped from the senior England squad for the qualifiers, after coming on as a sub in the friendly against Hungary, and after being called up to the England U21 squad, he was dropped for the game against Portugal as well. It was due to the events that surrounded Jack Wilshere at the end of August, when he was arrested after a night out for being involved in a ‘fracas’. Arsene Wenger though, was surprised that Wilshere was left out of the team to face Potugal, he is quoted in the Guardian,

“I was surprised and I don’t think it needs any more comment. Jack is quite focused on training and he wants to do well. From what I’ve heard Jack hasn’t done a lot wrong.”

As with Wayne Rooney’s situation in recent weeks, it again brings up the question of whether a players private life should affect their professional one and if it should stop them from being picked for a game. I generally hold the view that unless it is going to interfere with a player’s game, cause ructions in the dressing room or if the incident is a very serious one, if that individual is happy to play he should do, and the content of his private life should remain his own. An arrest of course, is more serious than an alleged infidelity say, and it is understandable that it would affect a managers decision to pick that player or not. With Stuart Pearce this is obviously what happened, and the England U21 boss stated,

“There have been one or two stories in regard to him. Whether there is any truth in them or not I am not particularly interested – but I felt he had taken his eye off the ball. This game was too important to put a player on the pitch who hadn’t had a full focus in respect of that.”

If Pearce believes that an individual is not fully focused on playing football for whatever reason, then he is absolutely right to drop that player. You get the impression that had Wilshere been concentrating solely on his football, despite the arrest, Pearce would have played him.

Arsene Wenger would not have been with the England camp so it would be impossible for him to say whether or not Wilshere was in the right frame of mind to play. If Wenger was in the mind that Pearce had dropped Wilshere just because of the arrest, you can understand why the Frenchman may have been surprised by the decision. In spite of the arrest it appears from the first stories that Wilshere was not an antagonist, and that he was trying to break up a fight between his friend and another individual. This is why Wenger has continued to play him, if Wilshere had been arrested for a more malicious deed, it may have been different for his club as well as country.

You can see why Wenger was upset with Wilshere being dropped from the England U21 squad, and a manager will virtually always defend their players, but he should also recognise that it was Stuart Pearce’s prerogative to make that call, and he was best placed to do this. If Pearce believed Wilshere to be in the wrong frame of mind, I for one would accept that judgement.

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