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If there are nerves when Jack Wilshere walks into the room and sits behind the table emblazoned with the England logo, they are not evident.
The 33-year-old has been in press conference rooms many times as a player, but as a head coach it is an alien proposition. He is at St George’s Park and is part of a cohort of 25 on the Uefa Pro Licence course who are briefed on a fictional scenario they might face as a head coach before they take a seat in front of a small group of journalists to be brutally grilled on it. The process is a little extreme and not entirely true to life, but it is designed to put them under pressure and test the media skills they have learned that day.
The fictional scenarios are far from straightforward, but Wilshere is unfazed. There is a humanity, an honesty, and an all-around likability to him that means that when he steps away from the table after his interrogation there is little to fault.
When Wilshere, who in real life is a first-team coach at Norwich, sits down with the same journalists afterwards to be interviewed, those humble characteristics are mixed with a burning ambition. It is evident the pursuit of excellence that drove him as a player has been rechannelled into his coaching.
“I like to have an end goal in sight and that is to be a head coach,” he says confidently, before admitting that was not always the case. Plenty of players do coaching badges routinely while they are still playing with one eye on a possible future career path, but it was watching the Arsenal manager, Mikel Arteta, that lit the coaching spark. “Mikel was the one,” says Wilshere. “I’d never seen someone coach that way, I’d never seen his passion, I’d never seen how he would try to teach the players, both in meetings and on the pitch. I was invited back to train when I was between clubs, I saw it, I was on my Uefa A Licence at the time and it inspired me.”
In July 2022, four days after Wilshere had hung up his boots, he was appointed head coach of Arsenal’s under-18s and guided the team to the 2023 FA Youth Cup final in his first season, which they lost to West Ham. After two years and three months with Arsenal’s youngsters a first senior opportunity arose, as a first-team coach under Johannes Hoff Thorup at Norwich.
“I love it,” says Wilshere. “When I first started my coaching journey, I wouldn’t say senior football scared me, but it was the unknown and I wanted to go in at under-18s level.” At the end of his second year in the Arsenal academy he had “the itch to go to a first team”, but he could still see an opportunity for self-development, so he stayed, until the Norwich sporting director, Ben Knapper, called and made a move into senior football feel “like the right step”.
Wilshere played at the top level, accruing 34 England caps and demonstrating exceptional skill in midfield, but coaching is like “starting anew”, he says. “It doesn’t matter how good you were as a player, how bad you were as a player, whatever you want. It’s a completely different skillset you need.”
It can be hard for a player of such prodigious talent to work with people who do not match that level of ability, but important lessons have been learned in that respect. “When I first went in as under-18s head coach, I couldn’t quite understand why they could or couldn’t do certain things,” explains Wilshere. “I thought: ‘Well, you’re at Arsenal, you’re an under-18, you should be able to do this, or you shouldn’t be doing this still.’ My assistant at the time, Adam Birchall, who has now taken the job I left, helped me massively. He came through the Arsenal academy, had a similar journey to me, but I obviously went and played for Arsenal while he went and had to make a career in League One, League Two.
“We had a really nice balance of my understanding of what it takes to get there and him understanding the different stages of development there are, because he coached all the way through, and the requirements needed to have a career at the lower levels.
“I was lucky as well, though, because when I first started with the team there was Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly who were doing things that none of the other players could do. You could see and measure where they were versus where others were. I understood that those two were probably going to go on and play for Arsenal and that for this other group of players, which was just as important, we needed to find a way of making them have a career in the game.”
The fear is that young players are products of their academies to such an extent that there is a uniformity to their play. “I was taught to play the game in a certain way,” says Wilshere. “Arsène [Wenger] gave a lot of responsibility. The academy played the same way as the first team, but it wasn’t: ‘This is how we play, this is what you need to do.’ It was: ‘We’re going to put you in a position and your own understanding of the game, your own insight, will create moments for you.’ Now, everyone plays the same … let’s see if the game changes and players have to take on more responsibility and have more freedom with that, because at the moment it’s very structural.”
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Wilshere is effusive on Nwaneri’s and Lewis-Skelly’s talent. “They could pick the ball up in any situation, in under-15s, under-16s, in under-18s football, and make something happen. More importantly, Myles is very team-oriented, he’s more of a natural leader and wants to bring everyone with him. Whereas Ethan is just really driven, he’d come and seek advice, feedback from coaches.”
With England light at left-back, it is not implausible that Lewis-Skelly could find himself in the national team squad for the 2026 World Cup. Wilshere says he would “be able to handle it” and thinks England can be bolder in their selection of young talent.
“I was in the first team at Arsenal and then I was being called up for the under-19s at England. Don’t get me wrong, at that point I was just happy to represent my country,” says Wilshere. “I wasn’t thinking: ‘Now I’m ready for the first team.’ But I was going from training with Arsenal first team, playing in the Champions League and playing in the Premier League, to going and playing in the under-19s. Of course there was still some developing to do but I think we can be braver as a nation.”
There is no topic Wilshere shies away from. He explains, for example, that he is running the London Marathon for the British Heart Foundation, after his daughter Siena had to have open heart surgery to repair a congenital heart defect. He pivots back to his training having a purpose, an end goal.
“I never ever thought I’d be doing a marathon,” he says. “Never really wanted to. I was convinced to do it by a friend of mine. The other day I ran 20k, it took me two hours. It’s probably harder mentally [than physically]. Because I’m not going fast enough to make it hard for me in my lungs. But obviously your legs start to feel heavy.”
The Arsenal academy has crafted many young talents, Wilshere among them, but it has also seemingly produced an intelligent and hungry young coach. When injuries stall or prematurely end players’ careers, they might be forgiven for thinking their best days in the game are behind them. At 33, Wilshere’s may still lie ahead, on the unknown career path he didn’t see himself taking.
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