Jack Wilshere: England players get homework from Roy Hodgson…
Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere has revealed that he and many of his England teammates are given homework by national team boss Roy Hodgson to work on between matches.
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According to reports in The Guardian, squad members are given videos to look at between meet-ups, with Wilshere asked to study Italian midfield maestro Andrea Pirlo and Argentina hard-man Javier Mascherano ahead of England’s game with Switzerland.
The ploy seems to be working, with Wilshere impressing with his performance during the Three Lions 2-0 success on Monday night, as Gunners teammate Danny Welbeck netted both the goals.
Wilshere revealed he and his team-mates will be provided with footage and analysis of their own performances, and clips of established players they might hope to emulate, to be studied before the fixtures against San Marino and Estonia next month.
“Between meet-ups we’ve got to do a little bit more work,” said Wilshere. “We’ve got to do our homework, to go through videos and analyse the games, because we don’t get long together. I’ll speak with Gary Neville. We’re in contact. That [diamond] formation is going to be the way forward and we’ll only get better at it.”
The source adds that Wilshere, once compared favourably by Fabio Capello to Claude Makélélé, is unlikely to feature at the base of a diamond for Arsenal over the next few weeks but will continue to examine the approach of modern-day defensive midfielders such as Mascherano and Pirlo in an attempt to bring aspects of their game into his own.
“It’s a new role and the first time I’ve ever played back there on my own,” said the midfielder. “Sometimes I just want to get forward and you have to be disciplined. I’ll get better at it. When the manager told me I was going to play there, I watched videos of Pirlo and Mascherano, the best players who play there.
“It was Pirlo’s use of the ball they wanted me to look at and the way Mascherano breaks up play and gets around. I watched Argentina’s game against Germany in the World Cup final and he was fantastic.”