Jack Wilshere: Arsenal midfielder defended by Arsene Wenger as 'not a drinker at all'

Arsene Wenger robustly defended Jack Wilshere at his press conference on Thursday, insisting that his midfielder, who will return for the Arsenal Under-21s on Friday night, is “not a drinker at all”.

Wilshere has been under fire this week after being questioned by police in the early hours of Sunday morning following an altercation outside a nightclub in central London. While Wilshere has been reminded of his responsibilities again by Wenger, in public the manager is behind his player. Wenger said that he believed this issue had been “taken out of proportion a bit” and suggested that Wilshere had been provoked.

Wenger was steadfast in his belief that Wilshere had not been drinking to excess last Saturday night, and said that he knew from how well Wilshere trained when back at London Colney on Monday. Arsenal have a regular testing programme to see what their players are taking on, and Wenger said he has no reservations about Wilshere.

“Jack is not a drinker at all,” Wenger said. “I don’t even have that worry, not at all. What he did [last Saturday night] I don’t know, honestly I don’t think so. He had a hard [training] session on Monday and he did very well in the session, so if he had been heavily drinking on Sunday I don’t think he would have survived.”

Wenger even positively compared Wilshere’s behaviour with that of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, the two best players of their generation. “Before games they have been photographed [out], 48 hours before games,” Wenger said. “Which Wilshere has never been done.”

When Wenger arrived at Arsenal almost 20 years ago, he revolutionised the players’ diets and now they have a careful testing regime. “We test our players regularly,” Wenger said. “We don’t have a drinking problem. The drinking problem was much bigger when I arrived. Scientifically we control our players very well, that has changed as well.”

Wilshere has not played since breaking his leg in training in August, and Wenger said that his commitment to successful rehabilitation could not be questioned. “The real question is does he have the serious life or not? A player cannot hide when you watch him practice every day. He is serious in his life.”

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“I invite you to come in every day and watch him work,” Wenger said. “You will understand that he is very, very dedicated. The only thing that could stop him from having the career he could make is injuries. He has a history of injuries, but I hope he can get rid of that. Then he will have the career he deserves.”

Wilshere will play for the Arsenal Under-21s on Friday, almost 10 months on from his last competitive game, for England against Slovenia. Wenger hopes that when Wilshere is back playing people will only concentrate on his football.

“He should be absolutely well now,” he said. “But because of the history if you look at the number of games he has played in the past two or three years, you think let’s get the consistency and then before you say you are out of the woods, let’s how the next three months go and then you assess things.”

“What you want is for them to behave well, of course,” he said. “But first of all to perform well on the football pitch. That’s their job. Today the judgment is just on the last performance. Let him recover, prepare, come back and if he does well for England at the European Championship he will be the hero.”