One of the names on the lips of every pundit in the game at the moment is that of Jack Wilshere. Journalists and ex-pros are lining up to hail him as "the next <insert former England player>" or pinning the hopes of future World Cup glory on his young shoulders. "Jack Wilshere is the midfielder we have been waiting for" proclaimed Paul Hayward in The Guardian after Arsenal's home leg Champions League win over Barcelona, making the rather bold statement that he "already appears indistinguishable from Barcelona's two best midfielders (Xavi and Iniesta)" before going on to compare him to Scholes, Gerrard and Gascoigne, and then claiming that it may be Wilshere that Barcelona will come calling for in the summer and not his captain Cesc Fabregas.
Robbie Savage also ventured this opinion during the 5 Live commentary of Arsenal v Leyton Orient, saying that if he were in Pep Guardiola's shoes, he'd be more interested in signing Wilshere. "Oh, you'd have to be", crooned commentator Alan Green.
There is already a consensus that he will one day be England captain. Simon Caney, in Sport, argues that "he is a player around whom a bright new (England) team can be built." Terry Venables, in the Sun, states that Wilshere is "in the same mould" as Gazza.
The story of Wilshere's season seems set to be written. The group-think narrative so common to English football journalism and punditry has been established: Wilshere burst onto the scene, "made himself at home", outplayed Xavi, Iniesta and Messi in the Champions League (let's forget about the second leg for now), made his mark on the England senior team, and is set to be the next Gazza/Scholes and lead England to World Cup glory at some point in the hazy, not-too-distant future. Any dissenting voices urging for a bit of perspective (for example Chirs Waddle in The Mirror) are generally dismissed as being negative. The charge from a Talk Sport radio host to a caller who espoused a similar argument to Waddle's was along the lines of "you are being negative because he is English, if he was foreign you would say he was amazing."
Wilshere is a very talented footballer and a great prospect. No one would argue with that. At the age of 19, holding your own in the premier League at one of its top clubs is impressive enough. He has an impressive list of attributes: a good range of passing, an ability to wriggle round challenges, a tenacious quality when not in possession and good movement when his colleagues have the ball. He has vision and can play a through ball with the right weight. He links play well, and complements the Arsenal style of play.
But the next Gazza? A future England playmaker? Can we really say he is that good right at this moment? For those of us old enough to remember seeing Gazza play, he was that rare thing: a footballer who could run a game seemingly single handed. With an incredible ability to get past players he would often feverishly demand the ball from his less talented team mates, sometimes from two yards away, and make assault after assault into the opposing penalty box. In short he was an explosive, attacking midfielder, with a genuine ability to strike fear into opposing defenders. He did things like this. And this. And so on.
In his first full season at Newcastle (1985/86), aged 19, he scored 9 goals in 35 appearances, a goal ratio he continued throughout his career, ending with an average of a little under a goal every 4 games (468 Appearances, 110 goals).
Wilshere, by comparison in terms of goals, has 2 in 40 appearances so far. Assists were not counted in those days but my guess is that Gazza would have racked up more than Wilshere's respectable 5.
But of course Gazza and Wilshere are different kinds of players; Gazza was a more advanced, thrusting attacking midfielder and so would have had more opportunities to score and create chances for others. Wilshere plays more of a linking role between midfielders and Arsenal's front three. So these kind of comparisons are a little unfair. But that is entirely the point.
Why the need to make these comparisons in the first place? Comparing him to different types of players who have had fantastic careers, and have demonstrated time and again their ability to influence big matches always runs the risk of raising expectations that may never be met.
Wilshere is unlikely to ever score a lot of goals in a season, or even create assists (he is more likely to play the pass before the assist). How long before journalists and pundits are highlighting this as a weakness in his game? You can already imagine the comments in a few years time; "he needs to score more goals from midfield/get forward more/take people on in the final third" etc and a harping back to the days when we had a midfielder like Lampard or Gerrard who could get in the box and finish. It may be that Wilshere will add these kind of attributes to his game, as did Fabregas, but it is just as likely that he continues to develop and excel as the kind of neat and tidy deeper lying midfielder who links play and maintains possession, that fits perfectly into Arsenal's style of play, (a style, incidentally, which is unlikely to be mirrored by England).
So can we really say that Wilshere is the next big thing? Would Paul Hayward have said what he said had Messi's goal in the first half not been incorrectly ruled out, and Barcelona ran out comfortable winners? Does a comfortable win over Wales make it easier to hold Wilshere up as a future England captain and someone the England manager can build a team around? Is he really as good as Gazza was, or indeed anything like Gazza in the first place? Only time will tell of course. But it seems a shame that we can't just let him develop as Jack Wilshere and give him at least a couple of years to refine and develop his game before we start the hype. In fact this is exactly what his manager hopes for. Wenger is quoted on the Arsenal website as saying, "I don't deny that he is a very promising player. I wouldn't play him at 19 years of age in the first team with the number of midfielders that I have if I didn't believe that. But let him play and what he will be, he will be. We are all confident that he has a bright future but it's the first season [for him]. Let him play."
You can hear Wenger's world weariness; he is a manager who has brought through many promising young players, and knows the developmental stages they go through, as well as the peaks and troughs. He is already warning that Wilshere will "hit the wall" at some stage. You wonder how the English press and public will cope with this, having built him up so much after only 40 or so appearances (interestingly he has only played 90 minutes in 19 of these matches).
Perhaps, after the world cup failings of one of the oldest squads in the tournament the English media are now so desperate for a hopeful, youthful future that they are latching on to the first young premiership starter with a decent first touch. But over-hyping a promising young player who, because of his style of play and attributes, is never likely to have the kind of impact in games that really makes fans and pundits take notice (i.e. assists and goals), seems likely to end in tears for all concerned.
Perhaps comparisons with Gazza should end there.
