Frenchman hits out at his young charge, who was photographed smoking earlier this week.
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Arsenal head coach Arsene Wenger has spoken out about the recent pictures showing midfield player Jack Wilshere smoking in public, according to reports in the Daily Mirror.
The England international was photographed by the Sun newspaper in the early hours of Thursday morning with a cigarette in his hand while out celebrating the north London club’s 2-0 win over Napoli with his friends and some team-mates.
Wilshere, 21, and the rest of the Gunners squad had been given two days off by Wenger after their resounding victory over the in-form Serie A outfit in the group phase of this season’s Uefa Champions League at the Emirates on Tuesday night.
However, the playmaker has since come out to deny that he is a smoker, claiming instead that he was simply taking part in a prank with his friends, one of who dared Wilshere to hold the cigarette in his hand, which he did.
But his manager at Arsenal, though, has come down hard on his star man, with the Frenchman giving Wilshere a slap on the wrists.
“I disagree completely with that behaviour. I don’t know really what happened, I will need to have a chat with him about that,” said Wenger in his pre-match press conference on Friday ahead of Arsenal’s Premier League encounter with West Bromwich Albion at the Hawthorns on Sunday afternoon.