Jack Wilshere reveals the Arsene Wenger trait he’s making an attempt to emulate as a supervisor – and the way watching Mikel Arteta ‘impressed’ his personal teaching journey

It is strange that in someone so young we have already seen so many incarnations of Jack Wilshere.

First came the ferociously talented footballer who, at just 19, tamed Barcelona‘s midfield in a now legendary game for Arsenal supporters, before retiring at 30 from a career cruelly curtailed by injury. 

Then came the young coach, who at 31 took Arsenal’s Under 18s – featuring Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri – to the FA Youth Cup final in his first season before joining Norwich’s senior staff last year. 

But Wilshere has also had to take on the one role that we all hope never falls to us;  the terrified parent, forced to watch on, helpless as their child’s life hangs in the balance. His daughter, Siena, was just five years old when she underwent a five-hour long operation to fix a hole in her heart, the result of a congenital defect last year. 

‘As a parent to go through that, it was tough,’ Wilshere tells Mail Sport as part of Sky Bet’s Every Minute Matters campaign in partnership with the British Heart Foundation, intent on inspiring football fans across the nation to learn lifesaving CPR.

‘As a footballer, everything you do you’re in control of. You have a plan or a schedule and you’re in control of it and then all of a sudden, something happens where all the control’s gone and you have to put your trust in the doctors. 

‘Giving up the control of probably your most precious asset is tough, but thankfully with the amazing doctors in the British Heart Foundation, we got through it. 

‘It was tough. When you’re the dad and the man of the family it probably hits harder for everyone else at home and your job is to try and make sure everyone’s feeling OK. It was a tough time.’

Becoming a household name at 16 and finding yourself thrust into the limelight, you would forgive a sizeable ego and an air of entitlement, but instead in Wilshere there is an emotional intelligence and self-awareness missing in some coaches twice his age. 

He talks of the sacrifices his parents made to help him pursue his dream, and is refreshingly aware of his own shortcomings, freely describing how he struggled to give a speech on his first day in charge of Arsenal’s Under 18s, before imparting his own wisdom for any players looking to forge a new career in coaching. 

‘What I would say is you don’t rip up everything you learned while playing, because you need it,’ he says. ‘But you go back to the start of that journey. It’s just a completely different skillset. 

‘Everyone’s journey is a little bit different, but one thing that I would encourage and my message to players that want to go into coaching is just to take your time and learn.

‘There’s so many basic things that you think, if you’ve been a player it will come naturally to you. It doesn’t, you have to learn it, you have to be really clear on a playing style, on a way that you see the game in every moment. It takes time, but I’m really happy that I decided to take this journey.’

Wilshere is in the infancy of his coaching career, but it doesn’t take long for both his passion for his craft and his determination to shine through. 

After a successful stint back at the Emirates, he joined Johannes Hoff Thorup’s coaching staff in October 2024, and has relished the challenge. 

‘My ambition’s to become a head coach, and I’ve said that from the start. When I went to Norwich I sat down with the manager, and the technical director, I wanted to make it clear to them that I see myself as a head coach and that is my journey.

‘I want that pressure of feeling it and to experience it now without being the actual main guy is amazing and I’m just trying to take in as much as I can.’

The transition from youth team to senior coaching is demanding. The ‘tempo of work’, as Wilshere puts it, is relentless, going from the final whistle to complete debrief and preparation for the next challenge often within 12 hours. Yet there is no hint of a complaint. If anything, the exact opposite is true. 

‘I’m really happy because it’s everything that I need and what I want to do,’ Wilshere says of his new life. 

For someone in their first senior post, he is impressively confident in his own outlook on the game. 

As a former teenage prodigy, providing pathways for young players on an individual level underpins his entire coaching ethos.

‘I’m very passionate about developing players and how you can develop whether you’re 16 or 30. There’s always areas where you can develop. And my big thing is players having to experience something before you explain it to them. 

‘Of course, you can say, “right, this is what could happen”, or “this is what’s going to happen”, but for a player to actually experience it and realise the challenges, the pressures, is more important. 

‘The biggest thing that I see is developing the individual within the playing style. Of course you want to play like the first team, but you also have to understand that if they don’t get there, that’s not the end of the road for them.

‘So you have to coach them with that in mind and understand that yeah, the ultimate ambition might be to play for Arsenal, for example, but what do we have to do to give them a career in the game? So that’s why I think developing the individual within the playing style really helps.’

It’s hardly a surprise when you think about Wilshere’s influences in coaching. Arsene Wenger, Mikel Arteta, David Moyes, Eddie Howe – you couldn’t really ask for much better tutelage, and from each Wilshere has taken a new lesson. 

He retells, in typically impressive detail, the mistake he made on his full Premier League debut, which led to Liverpool’s equaliser in a 1-1 draw at Anfield, and how Wenger dealt with it. 

‘I look at someone like Arsene Wenger, and I try to take a little bit of him in my coaching, because he had the ability to then give me that confidence back. He wasn’t intense in training, but he had a way about him. The next week I was in the squad again, and as an 18-year-old that was a big message. 

‘From Arsene, I try and take the way he was as a leader and man manager and the belief he gave me. When I think of Eddie Howe, I think about really, really zooming in on developing the individual. 

‘I went back to Arsenal when I was on my A License, and I saw Mikel coach, and how passionate he was about developing the individual and also developing a playing style and coaching every moment, it really inspired me. 

‘I try and take a little bit of everything, even from bad experiences. When I was with Manuel Pellegrini and David Moyes came in and I was not playing, I spent six months with him and people would probably think I have bad things to say about it. But he was such a good coach.

‘That is something that every coach can take away. You’re not going to keep everyone happy because people want to play and you can only pick 11 players. 

‘But actually creating an atmosphere, a culture, where people want to be there, training is good, it’s competitive and you can keep everyone inspired – that’s what I took from David Moyes.’

Life in football, for Wilshere, is all about lessons learned, and those still to be taught. Gone is the teenager who once fronted up to Sergio Busquets, Xavi Hernandez and Andres Iniesta. In his place now is a pragmatic, deep-thinking young man devoted to improving not just those around him, but himself, too. 

It’s part of the reason why he will be running the London Marathon later this year for the British Heart Foundation, yet another challenge for him to wrestle with and find a new way to engage body and mind, and take accountability. 

‘Probably the last three years I started to run a little bit more – when I say run, I mean 5K, 10K and so I was quite confident, but then, when you have to run 20K, 25K, 30K, that’s tough physically, of course, but probably the hardest thing I would say is mentally. 

‘But it’s going well, I’m more confident now. 25km as the most I’ve done, so there’s  probably 18km more I need to find but training’s going well. 

‘I’m trying to do it, I’m trying to hold myself accountable, which is hard at times as well.’

At 33, Wilshere has already endured enough setbacks, both on and off the field, for an entire club, let alone one sole coach. Yet there is never a mention of what he missed out on or was deprived of, only what is to come, and that with an unshakable confidence.

And if there’s one thing you take from 25 minutes in the company of this emotionally intelligent, driven, and self-aware young man, it’s that you’d be a fool to bet against him finding those extra 18km – and then some.   

Sky Bet and the EFL have joined forces in support of the British Heart Foundation to host the Sky Bet EFL Every Minute Matters Relay – a gruelling 4000km challenge, where fans walk, run or cycle to every one of the 72 Sky Bet EFL Clubs in just 28 days. 

To learn CPR in just 15 minutes with the BHF’s free, online tool, search ‘RevivR’.