Jack Wilshere interview: Staying calm, making memories and praising Lewis-Skelly

Jack Wilshere is back at the Emirates. Instead of slaloming past lunging challenges, he’s trying to keep his balance in the technical area.

“I was all over the gaff!” the Arsenal Under-18s head coach said after his side came from behind to beat Cambridge United 3-2 in the FA Youth Cup quarter-final.

“When we scored, I fell over. I try and stay calm, it’s important. At times, I’m kicking every ball and I’m like a fan. I need to manage those moments a bit better and be calmer.

“I loved every minute of it. I probably looked like I didn’t, but I loved it. I love football, I love competing. When you have a group like that, who have that spirit and have that fight, it’s a pleasure.”

The 31-year-old lived every moment on the touchline. Shouts of“calm!” often came when his midfielders received the ball, while he spent most of the game within inches of the pitch — not too dissimilar to Arsenal’s first-team manager Mikel Arteta — a yard or two outside his technical area to grab quick words with his players.

Arsenal Under-18s booked their place in the FA Youth Cup semi-finals after a 3-2 win over Cambridge

Wilshere has been here before, winning the competition in 2009. He scored penalties at the Emirates in the home legs of the semi-final againstManchester City and final againstLiverpool.

His experience as a key member of the lastArsenal team to lift the trophy has aided his current group in navigating tricky circumstances to reach this year’s semi-final (where they will play either Manchester City or Oxford United).

“There was a big moment in the last tie (fifth round) against Watford at half-time and we were 2-0 down. I said ‘Boys, looking around this room, we can win this game if we get the first goal’,” Wilshere recalls.

“To score four goals in 12 minutes in that game (to win 4-2) was not an easy thing to do, you don’t see it that often. That’s because of the quality they have and they have to believe it. We’re in a semi-final now, so they have to believe they’re a good team.”

Before beating Cambridge United, it was the intangibles that came with Wilshere’s FA Youth Cup success that came into play.

“I spoke to them today about how important these memories are and how you’re sitting next to a brother,” he added. “When I see the guys I won the Youth Cup final with now, we don’t say, ‘Oh, we won the Youth Cup’, but there’s that feeling.

“I said to them, ‘You’ll have so many bigger nights, but this is your first big night, big moment’. When you share that with someone, it’s very special so I’m glad they shared that tonight. We can build on that.”

The magnitude of the night was evident throughout.

Cambridge United’s travelling fans sold out the Emirates away end, with 3,000 making the trip. Their players fed off that, particularly when attacking that end in the second half to give Arsenal a proper challenge. The Arsenal bench (players and staff) were all on their feet for the final 10 minutes plus stoppage time, and the post-match celebrations of Reuell Walters andLino Sousa underpinned that sense of brotherly love.

 

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Wilshere himself encouraged his players to enjoy the moment and share their experiences on social media rather than telling them to hold back.

That sense of free expression was also evident during the game. Arsenal do not want formulaic, cookie-cutter players. Though some academies can fall into the trap of producing similar prospects, Arsenal prefer to have unique players whose skill sets jump out rather than being perfectly rounded. Under-21s head coach Mehmet Ali often refers to these attributes as ‘super strengths’ in his players.

Ethan Nwaneri’s opener was an amalgamation of this. Myles Lewis-Skelly —who has agreed a new deal, as exclusively revealed by David Ornstein — displayed his ability to receive the ball and burst through midfield under pressure. Nwaneri’s half-volley from outside the box was another snapshot of his quality.

@emiratesfacup

Ethan Nwaneri 🔥#fayouthcup#afc

♬ HOMELANDER X METRO – N🅰️th🅰️n N🅰️ll🅰️

“It depends what you are,” Wilshere says when asked what he wants from his midfielders.

“There are some things that you see from Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, Bradley Ibrahim, Jimi Gower — they do things you can’t coach. That’s why they’re at Arsenal. They need a few things tactically. I like my midfielders to be on the half-turn, play forward and touch forward, dribble if you can.

“We had some moments of brilliance when Myles drives, when Ethan’s on the half-turn, when Amario Cozier-Duberry’s one-vs-one. If we can get more of those then we’ll be all right.You see it tonight, even though it was Reuell Walters at centre-back. When you drive forward it just changes the picture.”

Like Ali’s under-21s — who most of this squad regularly plays for — Wilshere’s team has stylistic similarities to the first team but with tweaks due to their personnel.

Michal Rosiak inverted more from right-back rather than Lino Sousa at left-back, for instance.The 18-year-old has inverted for the under-21s, but his pushing higher through the left half-space suited the game better. Sousa won the penalty for Cozier-Duberry’s equaliser by doing as much. He then bent a cross to the back post from a fairly narrow position for Rosiak to volley home the stoppage-time winner.

Wilshere will be the first to say it is not a job solely done by him, with assistant Adam Birchall also crucial. Talks and visits from former team-mate Cesc Fabregas are helpful too, but Wilshere has taken strides as a coach since his appointment in the summer.

As the final moments of the Cambridge United match showed, however, there is much more for the young coach (and the players he develops) to experience in the future.

Tense last minute or so for Jack Wilshere in the Emirates technical area but his Arsenal U18s got throughhttps://t.co/7yPepw1Pg0pic.twitter.com/XT7uYbhUo2

— Art de Roché (@ArtdeRoche)February 23, 2023

(Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)