What’s all this talk about Jack Wilshere then, eh? 

As I trudged my way home from work yesterday evening, stopping only momentarily to offer a cursory nod of thanks to the free newspaper dispenserer, I noticed that the back pages were partially awash with talk about Wilshere possibly facing an exit from Arsenal with Juventus, Man City and Liverpool all interested.

Hey? Where did this all come from? Speculation that Wilshere hasn’t been playing, you say? ‘Balderdash!’ I say! The papers had some column inches to fill and Wilshere is an easy option, I say. After all, anybody worth their salt knows that Wilshere has been injured more times that Ed Milliband has been compared to Wallace from the famous plasticine animation fame. 

Where did that phrase come from by the way? ‘Worth their salt’. Did I just make it up? I’m pretty sure I didn’t. But salt is pretty worthless, in comparison to things like platinum, or smokes in a jail. Or thumbs. 

Anyway, so, where was I? Ah yes, Jack. Jacky, Jacky, Jack. Linked with a move away in the summer? No chance. For one thing he’s been injured for most of the season. That kind of scuppers anyone’s chances of playing football you know. So how Wilshere could be unhappy is beyond me. For clarity, I am not suggesting he is unhappy, just that there seems to be a perception in the media that he is unhappy. But I guess, as I said above, it fits the click-bait and free paper-grabbing world to perpetuate stories like that. 

Even in the Standard article I read yesterday, it uses plenty of suggestive language, but when you draw down into the nub of the content the story appears to be: 

Jack Wilshere could leave Arsenal. But Arsenal haven’t suggest he will. Nor has Jack or his representatives. So it’s unlikely he’ll move just yet. But lots of clubs are interested in him. So he could move. Maybe. 

I’m sure we’re interested in Messi. And if he one day said he’d like to play in England, he could play for us, after all we are an English team playing football in England. It’s practically written in the stars he will be at the club be this time next summer. Maybe. Probably. Could be.

Anyway, all this is to say that there isn’t really a lot to talk about ahead of the trip to Burnley, so everyone’s just killing time until Arsène gives us the low-down on who’s fit to face the Lancastrians on Saturday evening. There’s some bumf from Rambo about how he’s being more relaxed in his approach now, which is a bit interesting because it’s something a lot of the Arsenal fans I speak to picked up on at the beginning of the season, so it’s intriguing to see him say it himself. It’s easy to forget how so much of football is about instinct. In real time, things happen so quickly and I think with access to more data than ever before and more angles than ever before, the modern day football fan does get caught up in statistics with less regard for the more natural parts of the game.

It’s interesting that Ramsey also admits it might take him longer to get back to his best in comparison with others and, when you think about the niche he carved himself out last season – as the all-action box-to-box lung-busting midfielder with an eye for goal – it’s easier to appreciate why he seems to struggle initially when coming back from any injury.

What I’m hoping from Aaron between now and the rest of the season is more of what we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks. With everyone playing so well at the moment, his improvement and return to form has been overlooked somewhat because of the emergence of Coquelin and return to form of Özil and Giroud, but Ramsey is making it very difficult to find himself benched at all and you can easily see why Wilshere hasn’t even had a sniff just yet. 

Anyway, that’s me done for another day, because I gots a day or work ahead that I need to wake up for.

You be good now, ya’here?