y va marquer wrote:

once Wilshere's ankle issues are sorted he'll first choice for any midfield.

No way.

Volante wrote:

y va marquer wrote:

once Wilshere's ankle issues are sorted he'll first choice for any midfield.

No way.

Way

A fully fit Wilshere wouldn't even be guaranteed a place in Arsenal's midfield, not to mention Bayern/Juve/Barca/Madrid/City/Spain/Germany/Brazil/etc.

@lorddulaarsenal wrote:

y va marquer wrote:

Way

You prefer him to ramsey then y?

It's not a matter of preferring one over the other.
I've always thought the two of them were diamond midfielders.
If Wilshere is allowed the time to recover properly he will become a real force.
It's frustrating to see the stop start seasons that he's had, they've held him back so much.

He has the basics to become one, think he needs to relax and enjoy his football more though.
Strikes me as the type of character that overthinks his game.

He's got a deadly cross too.

It's difficult to get a handle on the level of performances we can expect when Wilshere is truly playing without any worries. Mainly because it has been so long since we've seen him play fluently. Even without being on the sidelines, his play is so stop-start. When he started playing in the first team he had that bite/zip/whateveryouwanttocallit about his play. Wenger keeps calling it "the little burst". Skipping past a challenge and driving forward which was pretty much what caught everyone's attention is now so laboured. He's only 21 so he has time, but meanwhile we're just going to have to wait to see if he can turn and move quicker. And if he can't, we'll have to see how he adapts his game.

I noted that the people around me laughed loud at Giroud when he came on tonight.
Not quite sure whether it was out of affection, or whether they actually see him as a bit of a joke player.

Wenger will shoehorn Wilshere into the midfield somehow. There's no way he'd leave him out.

qs! wrote:

Rayman wrote:

Wilshere looks massively out of form.

No he doesn't. The papers seem to agree with you but he's been in decent form for us over the last while.

Our best player in october in my opinion. He was pretty hit and miss before that though.

Wenger isn't going to leave Walcott/Podolski on the bench to accommodate Wilshere. At least I hope he won't. Arteta loses out in the long run.

Wenger would have no problem leaving Podolski on the bench.
He did so for majority of last season.

y va marquer wrote:

Wenger would have no problem leaving Podolski on the bench.
He did so for majority of last season.

Yes, but he's going to have to leave out both Podolski and Walcott to get Wilshere in a fully fit Arsenal XI. Cazorla is a guaranteed starter, as is Ramsey.

I think there's a good chance he might. I think those two will need a month or two to really get going anyway, and by then we might have signed a real striker who somewhat negates the need of putting a second one on the wing. I have to say, I really liked how fluid we were with Wilshere in a wide role. He brought out another dimension in our passing game. It's been lacking in all the games he's missed lately.

Our two best midfield performances this season occurred without Wilshere on the pitch. Walcott is a 20 goal, 10 assist per season player. I wouldn't leave him out to play two players (Cazorla/Wilshere/Rosicky) who rape Özil's space.

otfgoon wrote:

2002 was awful, though that might largely be down to the games being on at 7am in the morning over here.

Aww didums welcome to our world, I suppose you'd prefer all world cups to be played in 35C heat as was the case in USA 94 so the European viewers can enjoy the games after work?
Fair play to the Yanks though it was a good tournament.
74 was the first one I remember, 98 was special for me though because it's the only one I've been to.