England's future doesn't depend on Jack Wilshere, says Arsene Wenger

 
James Olley28 March 2013

Arsene Wenger today claimed England are placing too much pressure on Jack Wilshere and says the Arsenal midfielder cannot carry the nation’s hopes alone.

Roy Hodgson was left to rue Wilshere’s absence with an ankle injury once again as England were held to a 1-1 draw in Tuesday’s World Cup qualifier against Montenegro.

The 21-year-old is regarded as England’s brightest prospect despite only earning seven caps.

His latest outing in last month’s friendly win over Brazil raised expectations over his ability to help bridge the gap between England and the world’s best sides but Wenger sought to play down any such thoughts after confirming Wilshere will remain sidelined for another two weeks.

“The country doesn’t depend on one player, no matter how good he is,” said Wenger. “I believe what is the quality of a country is the number of good players they have.

“Jack is a fantastic player but it would be too much pressure on him to say England’s future depends on him. The other night, [David] Silva didn’t play for Spain in France and on the bench you had [Juan] Mata, [Santi] Cazorla, [Cesc] Fabregas and that is what you want to see from big football countries: that it doesn’t depend just on one player.

“What people forget about Spain, and what they do not talk enough about, is the big advantage of a good national team is when it is based on two [club] teams.

“In the starting line-up of Spain, many times you have seven players from Barcelona, three or four from Real Madrid. The other night [Nacho] Monreal was the only player who was not from Barcelona or Real Madrid.

“That is a massive advantage when you go into a game like that, because you can play like a club.

“One of the advantages of Spain is their national team are built on two clubs, if we can have four, five or six [England players] at one club, it will become a massive advantage for England.”

Wilshere will miss Saturday’s Premier League game at home to Reading and next weekend’s trip to West Brom but could return to face Norwich on April 13.

“We deferred a little bit his rehab by one week,” said Wenger. “We gave him more rest because it was wise medically to do it.

“We will rest him when needed. He has regular scans and as soon as we have an alert we will respect it no matter what is at stake.”

Wenger refused to confirm whether Wojciech Szczesny will return in goal after he was rested and replaced by Lukasz Fabianski for the club’s last two matches against Bayern Munich and Swansea but hinted the squad are playing for their futures in the run‑in with Champions League qualification in the balance.

“A lot of people speak about that [signing a goalkeeper] but we are not especially after anybody,” said Wenger. “What is important is we look at how we finish the season, how well we play and make the decisions who to buy and who to sell at the end of the season. This will be influenced by the way we play in our last nine games.”

Wenger confirmed Theo Walcott is unavailable with hip and groin problems, Abou Diaby is ruled out with a knee complaint and Kieran Gibbs is struggling with flu. Bacary Sagna is also back in the squad following a knee injury and Lukas Podolski recovered from a knee injury to play for Germany during the international break.

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