Jack Wilshere claims he’s the fittest he’s ever been after gradually returning to Arsene Wenger’s first team.
Wilshere believes that he’s probably in the best physical condition ever since his recovery from another hairline fracture to his fibula.
“That’s coming back and my fitness levels, if I’m honest, are probably the best they’ve ever been. I look at my numbers after the game and I’ve been out for four months and I’m not the one who hasn’t run the most. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t run the most, we’ve got a lot of players that do that, but my numbers are good so I’m happy.”
The 25-year-old is yet to make an appearance in the Premier League this season but has featured and impressed in the Europa League and League Cup.
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While it’s encouraging to hear the midfielder speak about how fit he feels, as a fan, it’s difficult to get too excited since this has happened before. Wilshere will return, fight back to fitness and talk about how great he feels before picking up another injury.
“It’s really competitive. It’s hard. I’m feeling probably the fittest I’ve ever felt,” Wilshere said almost a year ago while on loan with Bournemouth, around five months before suffering the hairline fracture. “The manager has a leader board for wins in training. I’m improving. Had a big win today. He has a ‘trainer of the month award’. And he films every training session and will sit you down and go through clips. I’ve never done that before.”
Since his debut for the first team at the age of 16, Wilshere has been sidelined for a total of 1013 days. That’s around 33 months.
Therefore, it’s sort of understandable that Arsenal may not have offered the midfielder a new deal yet.
Wilshere’s current contract runs out at the end of the season and although Gooners love him, as does Wenger presumably, he needs to get a good run of games together first. Otherwise, he’ll just start the cycle of getting injured, healing, recovering, getting fit, making appearances for the reserves, getting to the first team’s bench, playing a few games and getting injured all over again.