England - Praise heaped on Wilshere

One of the names on many peoples lips at the moment is Jack Wilshere.

The Arsenal man came in to make his full debut for England on Wednesday, and did not look out of place. This has seen praise 'lavished' upon him by a number or teammates, and also his manager, since...

Wayne Rooney, talking to sky sports news as they all were, said: 'I thought Jack Wilshere did really well tonight.

'He was really composed on the ball and he is really good to play with.'

This was added to by Darren Bent: 'I thought he was brilliant. He's a top, top player already. He is so young, so comfortable on the ball and he just makes it look easy.'

The man who replaced him at half time, and is essentially a rival for his spot, was Scott Parker. He said: 'Jack is an outstanding player. He is a young player coming through.

'I suppose there is always competition and obviously me and Jack are competing for places along with everyone else.

'Personally all I can do is go out there and do my best every time I put an England shirt on. If the manager decides to go with me or whoever he goes with I am sure we will do our best.'

Apparently in his 45 minutes on the pitch Wilshere successfully executed 93% of his attempted passes, completing 29 of these that he attempted!

This is quite impressive and shows that his ball retention ability is high, and that is something you need at this level.

If you cannot retain the ball you cannot cause damage to an opponent.

This country loves to build someone, or something, up before looking to knock it down, so I wonder how long it will be until the 19-year-old sees people chipping away at him...

Can Wilshere handle the expectancy that will be heaped upon him, as it almost certainly will, though, that is the question?

Like him or loathe him with Arsene Wenger guiding him I tend to think that the answer to this will be a resounding yes.

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.