Jack Wilshere

By Michael Viggars

JACK WILSHERE

Problems afoot for the England’s young playmaker

Arsenal’s former player of the season has suffered a frustrating year, being side-lined with a string of ankle, heel and knee problems. The lack of competitive games for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain this season is perhaps admission from Arsene Wenger himself that focusing on developing young talent can be a delicate process.
The mixed messages given by the club doctors and Arsenal’s press team have no doubt infuriated Gunners fans. One minute Wilshere is a ‘medical miracle’, the next his rehabilitation has suffered a major setback.

He was injured while on England duty in June 2011, Wenger seeing a month’s holiday as sufficient recovery time. At the end of July, during Arsenal’s Far East tour, he limped off seven minutes into the game with “ankle inflammation”. Scans suggested it was a short-term issue, however, upon further investigation a stress fracture was revealed, with the subsequent operation ruling him out for 4-5 months. Toward the end of the recovery process he suffered another stress fracture, this time in his calcaneus (heel bone) in late January of this year.

So has Jack been burned out by Wenger? Mismanaged by the club doctors? Or is it just a case of bad luck?

Some sporting injuries are just unlucky; take Djibril Cisse’s broken leg in 2004 whilst playing for Liverpool against Blackburn. In Wilshere’s case luck doesn’t come in to it. A combination of playing too many games (Wilshere was the most played player for the Gunners in 2010/2011), and poor management on the physicians part is to blame.

Diagnosis and Treatment

Before a return date can be set, any injury must be thoroughly investigated and X-rays and MRI scans are non-invasive methods that are used most frequently. The issue with sending a player for scans is that they are never 100% reliable.
Despite the initial diagnosis being inflammation around his ankle, secondary x-rays will have been taken 7-10 days later (standard medical protocol). The acute inactivity will have led to decalcification of the rested bones and a minor reduction in inflammation, leading to a clearer x-ray and revealing the stress fracture. This was the source of the initial confusion.

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Interesting - though prehaps it would help if they mentioned the number of England/U21s games played as well, particularly as that was when he 1st picked up his injury.

What date is this from? It seems to be written around April/May time

I play a lot of football, always have, when you're coming back from an injury you're unwittingly using and relying on other muscles that don't normally get used as often and that causes other injuries, it's why players coming back from a long lay off usually get those daft wee niggles

You can say he was used to much but only Arsene and Wilshire will really know that, if he's good enough he's old enough, not many would have questioned his constant position in the team when he won their player of the season

Michael Owen had a dodgy Hamstring because he was so quick but that didn't stop Liverpool picking him almost every week he was fit for the 8 years or so he was with them, England even decided early on he was the man to partner Shearer when he was only 18

Great to see you back posting gaffer, these boards and the wrestling ones especially have missed your contributions. Where have you been mate