Owen Coyle remembers the challenge and it is a fair bet that Jack Wilshere remembers it, too. “It caught Jack and it halved him in two, sending him spinning up in the air and back down to the grass,” Coyle says. The Blackburn Rovers manager was in charge of Bolton Wanderers at the time and an 18-year-old Wilshere had arrived from Arsenal for the first loan spell of his career.
It was January 2010 and the perpetrator of the training ground softening-up was Kevin Davies, the club captain and a player Coyle describes as being “as strong as an ox”. It was the traditional northern welcome for a softie from the south and, according to Coyle, Wilshere said nothing, got back up and carried on.
“I was kind of amused by it, thinking: ‘OK, let’s see what happens now,’” Coyle says. “A couple of minutes later, Kevin gets the ball and goes to play and Jack just comes from the side – he was like a bull. Jack takes him out, puts him spinning up in the air and he just stands over him and says: ‘Are you OK, skip? Are you OK, skip?’
“To be fair to Kevin, he said: ‘D’you know what, Jack? That will do for me.’ They had wanted to send a wee marker out. ‘Can he handle it? Is he tough?’ There is this myth, or whatever you want to call it, about boys from the south, and northerners being tougher. But Jack is as tough as old boots.”
There have been no such tests or initiations for Wilshere at Bournemouth, the club he joined on Wednesday of last week for the second loan spell of his career and for whom he will make a debut at home to West Bromwich Albion on Saturday. Eddie Howe, the manager, jokes that his squad does not have the hard men to dish anything out and adds: “The era of meeting a new signing with a crunching tackle has gone.” But what is under the microscope – yet again – is Wilshere’s capacity to bounce back in the face of adversity.
Eyebrows were raised when the midfielder chose Bournemouth over his other suitors, who included Milan and Roma, and it is possible to paint the move as a climbdown for him. When Wilshere went to Bolton, he was the coming star, one who was yet to start a Premier League game. Now, he is a 34-cap England international, one with Champions League pedigree and A-list profile.
“It is a brave decision,” Howe says. “He is testing himself to the extreme. Coming here is not going to be easy. We are not Arsenal. We are not going to dominate the ball, even though we try to do so. He will have to fight. Hopefully, he can look back on this as a turning point in his career.”
Wilshere has never been afraid to fight and his supporters – with Howe prominent among them – see his strength of character in the choice of Bournemouth. When Wilshere realised that he was down the pecking order at Arsenal, he resolved to join another English club. “The key thing for Jack was to stay in the Premier League,” Howe says. And he had no hang-up about dropping down the division to Bournemouth in search of a career spark.
Coyle says: “The easiest thing is to say: ‘I’m just going to stay put, I’ll stay in my comfort zone,’ or whatever. But Jack has said: ‘I’m prepared to push myself.’ The modern player doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to do and Jack had numerous other options. If he didn’t want to go to Bournemouth, he didn’t have to go. But he’s looked at it and he’s probably had a very good chat with Arsène Wenger, who he has a fantastic relationship with, and said: ‘This is fresh and it gets me back to where I want to be.’”
Liam Brady, the former Arsenal academy director and a man who knows a thing or two about left-footed playmaking, oversaw Wilshere’s development at the club from the age of nine. He believes that Wilshere can not only become “one of the best England players but one of the best players in the Premier League”, and he has a simple explanation for the 24-year-old’s recent difficulties: injury.
When Wilshere returned from what was a successful three and a half months at Bolton, Coyle says that Wenger said he “could build a team around this player”. The following season, Wilshere broke through at Arsenal but since then the setbacks have gripped with frustrating regularity.
There was the right ankle crack that ruled him out from June 2011 for 17 months; the fracture to the left foot on England duty in March 2014 that followed a tackle from Denmark’s Daniel Agger; the left ankle ligament damage in November of that year after the challenge from Manchester United’s Paddy McNair and the fractured left fibula that ruined his season last time out.
“People have called into question Jack’s way of playing, saying that it invites injuries, but two of them were down to very bad tackles from Agger and McNair,” Brady says. “Jack always had loads of character but, unfortunately, his injuries have stunted his influence at Arsenal. Having known him for many years, I wish him an injury-free season. I hope this is a relaunch for him and he comes back to Arsenal in good shape.”
Wilshere has dipped in and out of training at Bournemouth so far, with Howe making the point that “there are very few players who will do every minute of every session”. He has examined Wilshere’s data from Arsenal and, as he does with each member of his squad, he has tailored an individual fitness programme for him.
Howe played him in the first half of Warren Cummings’s testimonial match against Milan at the Vitality Stadium on Saturday and it was noticeable how high up the pitch Wilshere was, in a No10 role, close to the striker Benik Afobe, whom he counts as one of his best friends. The pair grew up together at Arsenal and Afobe is the godfather to Wilshere’s daughter, Delilah.
“I don’t think it is rocket science as to where Jack is best,” Howe says. “We would certainly want to see him attacking and using his creativity in the final third.”
Brady adds: “Jack’s best position is left of a holding midfield player. He can play as a No10, he can play the holding midfield role, as he did for Roy Hodgson with England, but his best role is linking midfield to attack, and getting up around the box, where he can use his talent to go past people and his ability to score and make goals. If you have him as a holding midfield player, you take away that aspect of his play. I’d always want him up around the opposition goal.”
Brady feels that Wilshere and Bournemouth are a good fit, given Howe’s preference for a passing style, and there is excitement at the club before the West Brom game. Wilshere is living on the south coast and Howe says that the player’s presence has lifted the training.
“I remember when I was at Burnley,” Coyle says, “and I signed Andy Cole on loan. Although he was 36 years old, he still passed the ball like a Champions League player and the level of training went up. The impact that Andy Cole had was just terrific and I’ve got no doubts that when Bournemouth have a Jack Wilshere at the top of his game, it will totally enhance everything that Eddie is doing. The supporters and everybody will think: ‘We can attract this type of player.’”
Bournemouth are the Premier League’s smallest ever club in stadium size and, at times such as these, it is tempting to cast the mind back to the recent past and Howe’s first spell in charge, which began in January 2009, when the team were stuck at the foot of League Two and in the throes of financial crisis. When Howe returned for his current spell in October 2012, they were fourth bottom of League One.
“A few years ago, if you had said to me that we would have a possibility of signing a player of Jack’s name and ability, I would have told you it was not possible,” Howe says. “It is a different path, one which we have not trodden before. It is a big moment for the football club.”
