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jack wilshereHis sporting career was like a firework that lit up in the sky and burst before coming to an end as quickly as it appeared. One moment he was 19, dribbling past Xavi and Andres Iniesta at the Nou Camp; Next he was 26 years old and his armory The days are over.
So Wilshere’s careful journey into the coaching world is not an accident, but a deliberate plan. After retiring at the age of 30, he took charge of the Arsenal under-18s and led a team including Miles Lewis-Skelley and Ethan Nwaneri to the FA Youth Cup final, a match where he had made his name as a teenage talent. When Wilshere leaves the U18 job in the summer of 2024, he was expected to move into management. Instead he took up a backroom role as a coach for Norwich City.
“I always said, I don’t want to step into the first team until I’m completely ready,” Wilshere said in his first interview as the new manager this week. luton town“Norwich gave me the opportunity to coach the first team, to connect with the first team players, because the academy was amazing but everyone knows the academy is not really about winning. So to go to Norwich and feel that, experience that, is probably why I’m sitting here today.”
After back-to-back relegations, Luton find themselves in League One, a far cry from the heights of the Premier League only 18 months ago. It means Wilshere is starting out in management at a lower rung of the ladder than many of his England teammates such as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney, but it is all part of what he sees as a steep learning curve.
“When I first walked into the dressing room of 18 at Arsenal and I thought about coaching and the way I wanted to do it, I immediately realized it was something I had to improve on, and something I had to throw myself into. And I did.”
Over the past three years, he studied for his badges to earn his UEFA Pro Licence. He refined his ideas about how the game should be played under then Norwich manager Johannes Half Thorup, who was full of praise for Wilshere’s approach.
“He is calm and relaxed about his coaching career,” Hof Thorup said recently. Championship Football Podcast“He started with Arsenal with the youth team because he wanted to find his way and develop his own ideas for the game, and those ideas were very similar to my ideas, so he was a great fit for us and he was keen to come. He was open and honest about his situation, saying that after Norwich he would prefer his next job to be head coach.”
The opportunity came sooner than Wilshere might have thought. When Half Thorp was sacked at the end of the season, Wilshere took charge of Norwich’s final two matches, leading the team to a win and a draw. “The two games were amazing, and it made me believe I could do it and I was ready to do it.”
Three and a half years after his last match as a player, Wilshere has now taken his first permanent manager’s job at Luton, a club close to home and his heart, where he spent two years as a youth player before joining Arsenal’s academy.
He admits that this is not the culmination of a lifelong dream. Wilshere did not play under Arsene Wenger despite aspiring to become a manager one day. But he was later inspired by Mikel Arteta, whom he watched closely at the Emirates.
“I’ve never seen anyone train like this,” Wilshere told The Independent earlier this year. “I had never seen his passion, I had never seen how he tried to teach the players both in meetings and on the field… Coaching was not something I did when I started my career… [I’m] Not thinking about it. But Mikael was one.
Arsenal turned Wilshere’s time as academy manager into a documentary, revealing an intelligent, articulate and thoughtful man about both the tactical side of the game and the emotional bond that makes a team greater than the sum of its parts. Wilshere’s vision is that the entire club, from the fans to the support staff, must believe in the team to unleash its potential.
“I’ve got friends in football now, there was a masseur, a chef, a nutritionist. These people are around the players every day, the players rely on them, and it’s my job to understand people on the training ground, build relationships with them and try to add something.”
He said: “A big part of what I want to do is, I want the players to enjoy everything, I want them to enjoy training. We need to make sure that when Saturday comes, it’s not a button we press on Saturday morning, it’s in the week, it’s in our behaviour, and we can compete from the start.”
This is a window into what Luton fans can expect from Wilshere. He was an extremely talented player and found that aspect of coaching – working with players who couldn’t do with the ball what he could – a frustration that took time to understand. Instead, his emphasis is not on technical skill, but on the less publicized side of his game, patience and honesty.
“Naturally everyone thinks I probably like playing with the ball. But before that we have to – it’s an old saying in football but I like it, my coach used to call it – ‘earn the right’. We have to compete, we have to win duels, fight, show solidarity. The fans have to see us and know that we are giving everything. Which we will do. Once we build the belief, Once we build confidence, we’ll try to build something where we have a little more control. Possession, be a little more aggressive, on the front foot, especially at home. “But we have work to do before we get there.”
Wilshere has a plan and a destination. And this time he is in no hurry.