Jack Wilshere’s time at West Ham comes to sad and inevitable end

Jack Wilshere was once hailed as England’s midfield maestro for a generation to come. Now he’s set to leave West Ham for a minimal fee as injuries continue to ravage his talent.

There’s an almost universal reaction when people talk about Jack Wilshere nowadays. That said, rueful smile and a slight head tilt as they talk about how injuries can ruin a player. Then they’ll probably mention that goal against Norwich and talk about the player he could have been given a better tolerance to injuries. But the fact of the matter is, he’s still at West Ham and struggling to get on the pitch due to injuries.

So can he build on things in the future? Is he going to be staying in London, the Premier League, or even the UK? Either way, I’m pretty sure this isn’t what most people predicted when he broke into the Arsenal and England set up at such a young age.

Season Grade: D-

2 starts, 6 substitute appearances and the majority of the season out injured mean that it’s hard to really give a positive grade for his involvement. He also never played more than 56 minutes in one game, and that 56 minutes came in the 5-0 drubbing by Manchester City on the opening day of the season. So not exactly much to grade on for the year. And with no goals, no assists and no memorable moments, it’s hard to give anything that doesn’t initially seem harsh.

In some weird way, Wilshere’s involvement mirrors our season. With Wilshere in the side, or at least available, we were sitting in the top half, even after a 2-0 defeat to Everton. Then he picks up another groin injury. Cut to when he’s next available (on the bench against Wolves after the restart) and West Ham is 16th. 9 games of Wilshere being available later and we’re safely into 15th and the season finishes on a relative high. I mean, maybe he’s that good a presence around the squad?

Future

So we get to thinking about his future now, and it’s once again time to sad grin and tilt your head. Once being linked with big-money moves to Barcelona, he’s now likely to be receiving interest from Premier League strugglers or Championship promotion chasers. And they’re not going to want to pay for him at this point. There have been too many false dawns in his injury recovery for anyone to hold much hope for regular involvement now.

But it’s highly likely his time at West Ham is over. Moyes has been told that he will need to sell if he wants to bring players in, and whatever Wilshere is being paid it’s highly likely that it’s too much given his playing time and involvement. It’s a shame for both parties, but I don’t see this working out. But I do wish him luck in finding stability, and I hope he doesn’t turn into another tragic retire before your 30 talent, because he really was a talented player, and he deserves to give it a go.