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Arsenal: Jack Wilshere can find his moment against Manchester City
By Josh Sippie
Arsenal need heroics against Manchester City and if Aaron Ramsey can’t do it, Jack Wilshere has a chance to find his glorious moment.
Careers aren’t made in moments, but they can be defined by them. Aaron Ramsey has two massive career-defining moments buried in a very successful career with Arsenal. One broke the trophy-drought when he scored an extra time winner against Hull City in the FA Cup final.
The other secured the same trophy against Premier League champion Chelsea. Even the FA Cup naysayers couldn’t deny that defeating the best in England was something to celebrate.
In between these moments are handfuls of other special occurrences, his recent hat trick at Everton stands out, for instance. When you fondly think back and remember Ramsey, these massive performances stand out as the major plot points.
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Jack Wilshere doesn’t have that yet. Sure, Barcelona 2011 was magical and he has some special goals and assists – Norwich City, Red Star Belgrade, even Aston Villa in that FA Cup final thrashing. But what did those contributions actually mean in the grand scheme? Other than a rewatchable YouTube video and the praise of Xavi, very little.
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Wilshere’s injury problems have obviously gotten in the way, but for the sake of this argument, for the sake of defining a career, those injuries have to fade in to the background, because Ramsey has made it work and it’s had his fair share of troubles too.
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The point is simply this – if Ramsey is unable to start against Manchester City, it will fall on Jack Wilshere to be the guy in a star-studded combined midfield and it will fall on Wilshere, who has so much talent, to leave a footprint on this match.
This Carabao Cup final is as big as the FA Cup final against Chelsea. The one that Ramsey won. If we can look at this match and remember how Wilshere “won” it for us, then he will have that first moment on the narrative arc of his career where we can point to and say “that’s when Wilshere won us a trophy.”
Obviously it’s not as simple as that and as mentioned, careers are not defined by moments, but they are remembered as such. You don’t remember full seasons a game at a time, you remember the shining moments that stand out.
Ramsey has his. He has his heroics and he has proven his ability to be a game-changer in games that don’t get much bigger.
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If Ramsey is unable to follow that up against Manchester City and Wilshere has to go instead, it will be a golden opportunity for him to make one up on his Welsh counterpart. And that’s kind of a big deal.