Arsenal: Jack Wilshere has to differentiate between the levels

Arsenal played out a pretty entertaining draw against Red Star Belgrade, despite the lackluster scoreline, but in the process, a new Jack Wilshere requirement emerged.

Arsenal squeezed out a 1-0 win over Red Star Belgrade when the two sides met in Serbia, thanks entirely to the wonder-goal that Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud combined for. It was assumed that, coming back to the Emirates, it wouldn’t be quite so difficult.

It was, but not in a bad way, necessarily. Arsenal are through to the next round and they did it with a bunch of kids and aging veterans.

And, despite the 0-0 scoreline, there was a lot of action. It was a remarkably open match to end goalless. And of course, right in the middle of all of it was Jack Wilshere as the creative hub of the Arsenal attack.

Wilshere has been making a tremendous case for himself to be included in the Premier League side and we all assumed it could only get better. At home against Red Star, I was less than impressed with the Englishman. Not because he wasn’t creating. He created more chances than the rest of the attack and midfield combined.

He also had a sure goal cleared off the line. Like I said, it wasn’t the attacking aspect that gave me pause. What did give me pause was just how loose he was with the ball.

But there are footnotes I will get to as we go. First of all, the numbers – and even beyond the numbers, if you watched the match – showed that Wilshere was incredibly loose with the ball. Dangerously so. He took six possession-surrendering touches, as his first touch just wasn’t on point.

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He also had the ball take from his foot twice. In total, he lost the ball eight times. Now, first footnote – this was a very open, loose game. Possession was coming and going like nobody’s business. But Wilshere was the loosest of everyone, losing the ball as many times as Walcott, Giroud and Willock combined.

Second footnote – I’m not faulting Wilshere for being a tad loose. I’m not here to scold him. He was trying to make things happen in a match where they were knocking on the door of a goal all damn day.

The only thing I will say is that Wilshere has to differentiate between the levels of competition. What do I mean? I mean that the Wilshere that we saw here against Red Star, who was losing the ball like it was going out of style, can’t be the Wilshere that comes into the Premier League.

He will be crucified by the opposition. In the Europa League – fine. Premier League – no. We already have trouble holding onto the ball, the last thing we need as an overly-eccentric Wilshere trying to force the issue.

Next: Arsenal vs Red Star Belgrade Player Ratings

Thankfully, this is the first time he has played this loosely yet this year. It was massively uncharacteristic. I just don’t want to see him falling into the habit of having to try way to hard to score in these side competitions and then carrying that over-eagerness into the Premier League.

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