Former Scotland Midfielder John Collins Believes England Must Build Around Jack Wilshire

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Ex-Fulham man sees Wilshire as central to English plans.

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Former Scotland international John Collins has said that England manager Roy Hodgson needs to build his team around Arsenal man Jack Wilshire, talkSPORT reports.

The 21-year-old has seen a series of injuries limit his input on the international stage to just nine appearances, but he was in the starting line up for a starring role in England’s 3-2 victory over Scotland on Wednesday night.

And the ex-Scotland man, who represented his country at both Euro ’96 and France ’98, believes that the Arsenal youngster will be central to anything that England hope to achieve.

“Wilshere is the shining light,” he said, “The team has to be built around him.

“Whenever he gets the ball he looks like he’s going to penetrate. He drops a shoulder, wants to beat a player, the one thing he needs to add to his game is to score more goals. But he’s exciting.”

However, Collins also went on to express doubts over Wayne Rooney’s predicament with Manchester United and fears that if the situation is not resolved soon then it could threaten to derail England’s plans to reach Brazil next year with crucial qualifiers coming up against Moldova and Ukraine next month.

“Rooney was on the edge of the game [against Scotland]. You could tell he hadn’t had many games. He’ll be better in a couple of weeks, but the question is whether he’s going to get games for Manchester United. I would say no, so that’s a worry,” he added.


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