Arsenal: Jack Wilshere has the perfect new beginning in sight

The Europa League starts this Thursday for Arsenal. With Arsene Wenger’s team selection difficult to decipher, perhaps it is the perfect beginning for one Jack Wilshere.

Jack Wilshere has failed to deliver on his potential. But to attribute the blame to him would be a gross and grave error. Injuries, as has been so famously publicised and discussed, have scuppered his progress, to the extent that the midfielder who was once hailed as the future of Arsenal football club by Cesc Fabregas and England’s greatest talent by Xavi was sent out on loan to simply give him some semblance of regular playing time.

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Much of his career has been littered with false dawns and false hope. A starring performance here; a rare shimmy and burst here; a scintillating goal against Norwich; an orchestrating display for the national side.

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But for most of the time, Wilshere has spent his days in the physio room, undergoing rehab, lifting weights in the gym, recovering from surgeries, simply dreaming of making it back onto the football field one day. For Wilshere, as he returned to North London with a broken leg, finding himself a long way down the midfield pecking order, he will have to work for his opportunities.

In fact, there was — and still is, if the most recent reports linking Fenerbache with a move for him are to be believed — a chance that he wouldn’t even be at the club to work for his opportunities. Wenger, reportedly, had told his once most-prized youngster that he was no longer a part of his plans, and it was looking as though Wilshere’s frustrating and unfulfilled Arsenal career was coming to an end.

However, Wilshere stayed in North London and is now nearing a return to the pitch. Perhaps his return his perfectly timed with the commencement of the Europa League.

After Arsenal failed to haul their way back into the top four last season, they succumbed themselves to unwanted trips to Eastern Europe and Thursday night football. It is unknown what kind of team he will play, whether he will rest his stars and blood his youngsters, or commit all of his best resources to the competition.

However, Wilshere is one player who is in search of a new beginning. Perhaps the Europa League could be that beginning. Very much like Harry Kane for Spurs, playing in a lesser competition that does not have the pressure of the Premier League against teams that he has the ability to dominate from central midfield could provide Wilshere with the run of form and confidence that he needs to rediscover his best.

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If Wenger is to rest the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez in Europe this season, then the Europa League is the perfect competition for players like Wilshere. It could well offer him and his quickly suffocating career one last, desperate lifeline.