Jack Wilshere's Latest Comments Suggest His Future May Lie Away from Arsenal

Jack Wilshere was once the bright young hope of Arsenal Football Club. Brought up at the club's Hale End academy, his early performances as a teenager suggested he would go on to be remembered as a Gunners great.

However, a succession of injury problems have had a devastating impact on his career, and this summer he was loaned to Bournemouth to afford him the chance to play regular first-team football. It's still early days, but right now it's difficult to see him coming back.

Arsene Wenger has long tried to include Wilshere in his plans. Even this season, he came off the bench in two out of the three Premier League games for which he was available. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Wilshere, who admitted to Matt Lawton of the Daily Mail that missing out on the first England squad of the season was "the final straw."

Discussing the midfield situation at Arsenal, Wilshere said:

"

There were a lot of midfielders and the manager brought another one in. I'd been injured for a while, and I was thinking I was at a stage of my career where I needed to play. I'm 24 and I've already missed too much football, and if I want to get to where I want to be it'd be no good coming off the bench in every game.

"

It's true that Wenger has plenty of midfield options at Arsenal. For the 4-1 win at Sunderland, none of Santi Cazorla, Aaron Ramsey or Granit Xhaka were available to start, yet Arsenal were still able to pick an experienced quality duo in Mohamed Elneny and Francis Coquelin.

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The new signing Wilshere refers to is Xhaka, and it's true to say that the arrival of the Switzerland international was always likely to spell trouble. Both players are left-footed playmakers who are not adverse to a meaty challenge.

While Wilshere is more of a dribbler than his Swiss counterpart, Xhaka's arrival was perhaps an indicator that Wenger had realised he could not rely on Wilshere to be fit for an entire season.

Nevertheless, there may still have been room for him in the Arsenal squad. One fact Wilshere does not mention is that while Xhaka arrived, the trio of Mikel Arteta, Mathieu Flamini and Tomas Rosicky all left the club this summer.

With Ramsey also picking up an injury on the opening day against Liverpool, the Arsenal midfield was in a state of flux. Wilshere had the opportunity to stake his claim for a regular place but appeared to shirk the challenge. 

Wilshere talks as if remaining on the bench at Arsenal was a certainty, but Wenger has shown in the past that he has a meritocratic selection policy. If a player performs, he will be rewarded—the rise of Alex Iwobi is probably the most recent example of that. It's almost as if Wilshere did not trust himself—or most likely, his body—to deliver when required.

Moving to Bournemouth makes him a big fish in a smaller pond. If fit, he is almost guaranteed to play—presumably his place in Eddie Howe's pecking order was assured as part of the negotiation process that took him to the south coast. 

However, it's also a step down. Wilshere has moved to a competent Premier League side but not one that can have any realistic expectation of challenging for major honours. Survival is Bournemouth's immediate ambition. He's swapped a team that never finishes below fourth for one that would be relieved to finish fourth bottom.

The problem for Wilshere is that he doesn't really look out of place. He doesn't look like an Arsenal man who's inexplicably landed in mid-table—he looks, to all intents and purposes, like a Bournemouth player. 

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Wilshere seems to be relishing the opportunity to play regularly and is loath to commit himself to anything beyond next summer. He told the Daily Mail:

"

I haven't really thought about my future beyond getting a season under my belt and just trying to improve as a player.

To be honest your question is a hard question to answer because I don't know what to say. I genuinely don't know if I am going to end up at Arsenal or somewhere else.

If you'd ask me two months ago if I was going to finish my career at Arsenal then I would have said, "Yeah, of course".

The fans have been great to me, the boss has been great to me. I have a lot of friends there. But sometimes that's the way football is. Two months ago I wouldn't have seen myself being here, but here I am. And I'm enjoying it.

"

Wilshere is clearly a player who needs to feel like an important member of the team. Being a squad player at Arsenal wasn't enough to satisfy him. He wants to be an important component of any squad he's part of.

Having enjoyed the responsibility of playing for Bournemouth week in, week out, is he really going to be prepared to go back to Arsenal and sit on the bench? Having ducked the fight this summer, why would he suddenly have the stomach for the intense competition in north London come next year? 

His contractual situation is also relevant. Wilshere's present deal expires in the summer of 2018, meaning that, come the end of this season, Arsenal will face a choice: Extend his contract or risk losing him for a free 12 months on. It that situation, players typically face a dichotomy: Sign or be sold.

The decision may well not be in Wilshere's hands. If Wenger's midfield continues to perform at its current level, there may simply not be room for him in the Arsenal squad. 

That's the risk Wilshere took when he moved to Bournemouth. Effectively, he showed himself to be dispensable. Right now, Arsenal are managing just fine without him.

Of course, this is still early in Wilshere's attempt to rehabilitate his career. He's still regaining match fitness, and it's possible that when his stamina returns, he'll be able to exert more influence on games. The potential still flickers, and it may just take a run of games for the flame of his talent to burst into light.

However, it does increasingly feel as if too much time may already have been lost. When Wilshere chose to move to Bournemouth rather than fight for his place at Arsenal, he might also have been tacitly admitting that he may not be the player he once was.

In agreeing to let him go, Wenger also dealt a blow to Wilshere's standing. Thus far, Wilshere's time away from the Emirates Stadium feels more likely to be permanent than a mere blip.

    

James McNicholas is Bleacher Report's lead Arsenal correspondent and will be following the club from a London base throughout 2016/17. Follow him on Twitter here.