Jack Wilshere pledges to change his game to avoid repeat of last season's injury nightmare for Arsenal

Jack Wilshere knows that he has to change his game to save his Arsenal career. The England midfielder missed almost all of last season with a broken leg which he admits was his mistake. That was just over one year ago, and as Wilshere hopes for an injury-free season this time, he acknowledged that he “cannot go into ridiculous challenges” any more.

Wilshere broke his leg in training on 1 August 2015, reaching for a tackle with Gabriel which he knows that he should have left. He did not return to the Arsenal first team until 24 April this year, almost nine months later. Wilshere made three appearances at the end of the season, none for 90 minutes, before joining up with England for their unsuccessful Euro 2016 campaign.

Having missed Arsenal’s mini-tour to Scandinavia last weekend with a minor knee injury, Wilshere will not be fit for Sunday’s season opener against Liverpool. But the 24-year-old is determined to no longer get drawn into the dangerous tackles which have cost him so much time to ankle and leg injuries already in his career.

“Last season was a frustrating one,” Wilshere admitted yesterday morning. “I did everything in pre-season then I got injured the day before the Community Shield. It was nothing to do with Gabriel, it wasn’t his fault. I took a big touch, and I was overstretching. My foot just moved slightly, and I got a pain down here [points to lower left fibula], and I tried to carry on and that lasted about 15 seconds. Then I had a bit of pain, had a scan, and saw a specialist.”

Wilshere had a hairline fracture but was not expected to be out for long. “It wasn’t the worst news, it was going to be six weeks,” Wilshere said. “But it never healed and I ended up having surgery, and that is why it took so long. It seemed like it took forever to heal. To get back to the level of the Premier League is difficult.”

Wilshere is desperate to avoid losing another season to injury which is why he has pledged that he will not throw himself into so many unwinnable tackles this season, especially in training. “I want to avoid that this year,” Wilshere said. “I know my body better than ever now, I know what it can and can’t do. It just can’t go into ridiculous challenges, especially in training.”

“That was the frustrating thing about last year. It wasn’t in the Community Shield, it wasn’t in a big game in the Premier League, it was in a training session before the Community Shield. I went into a tackle that I never should have, and I paid the price. I’ve done that before in the past as well. I know that my body is capable of training a lot, and putting myself through hard sessions and getting fitter. But going into stupid tackles is one thing that I will be avoiding.”

Although Wilshere’s natural style is to play football aggressively, he hopes that he can change his approach in training. “It is more difficult in a game, but in training I can take myself out of those situations quite easily,” he said. “I am one of those players in a game who gives my all, and sometimes if I overstretch for something I do open myself up to an injury. But something I will definitely be working on is not going into challenges that are 20-80.”

That is how Wilshere intends to play more of a role in Arsenal’s season this season. “The target for me this year is to play as many games as possible,” Wilshere said. “I don’t want to be setting any ridiculous targets. The main one for me is to play as many games as I can until Christmas, then re-assess at Christmas.”

Although Wilshere did not play his best football at Euro 2016, he was pleased to have gone after such a difficult year with Arsenal. “It was so important that I managed to go to the Euros and play some part because of the frustrating season I had,” Wilshere said. “If I'd missed the Euros it would have been tough on me mentally and physically because I would have had seven weeks off. That was the last thing I need after having seven or eight months off in the season.”

England’s failure in France saw Roy Hodgson resign, and Wilshere admitted that those England players must now prepare for vocal criticism from fans across the country this autumn. “We know that we were not good enough,” Wilshere admitted. “We know that we didn’t reach the heights that the country expected us to meet. We didn’t perform. And for us as well the main thing for us is to look at ourselves. We as players know that we were not good enough. Of course we let the fans down. We know that England fans are passionate, and they are going to show their frustration towards us.”

But Wilshere hopes that, if the England team do regain the public’s trust, that the public back them too. “If we win the trust of the country back then we need the country to get behind us as well because we are starting again with a new manager,” he said. “I'm sure there will be new players involved, and us, of course, we need to win the trust back. But once we do that we need the whole country behind us as well.”