That’s the first lesson

England found another quanta of energy in their Euro qualifier against Switzerland. Roy Hodgson, surprised naysayers by conjuring a diamond with Jack Wilshere at the base of a diamond, Jordan Henderson and Fabian Delph flaring out on either side, Raheem Sterling at the apex. England caught out the Swiss on the counterattack in a manner so vigorous that this could be a future template. Wilshere, playing in front of the back four, got mixed reviews for his performance. So is this what Hodgson has in store for him? Holding midfield? The player who off late skitters straight into a thicket of players and then either loses the ball, gets bumped off, or falls on contact. Rinse and repeat.

Wilshere, flowing, has good close ball control and finds holes to squeeze his passes through. But at Arsenal, those attributes at best make him competitive. His place not assured with Mesut Oezil, Santi Cazorla, and Aaron Ramsey ahead of him. Arsene Wenger clearly sees him as someone who could shake up things coming off the bench. Wilshere for some reason is unable to maintain the requisite intensity in the final third for the 90 minutes possibly because of fitness reasons. Wenger’s refusal to dip into the transfer market for a holding midfielder percolated the idea he was grooming Wilshere for that position while shifting Calum Chambers to central defense. However, Chambers, in his short stay has impressed as a quick study which might might favour him as a long term prospect for Arteta or Flamini, as their Arsenal careers wind down.

So here we have Hodgson playing Wilshere on the national side in a position Wenger has never tried him out at Arsenal, a side he can’t get a start at the creative end. Wenger seems to want to find Wilshere’s groove and the sense is this Arsenal thoroughbred is approaching a watershed. Wilshere, with some self awareness of slipping destiny, says he wants to bring the best of Javier Mascherano and Andrea Pirlo to his national role. Mascherano, the master disruptor and Pirlo, the touch artist. Does Wilshere have it in him to live up to such high standards?

Masch is the sort of player who also loves to tear his bottom a new one taking away the ball. Inveterate risk taking and a positional awareness compensate for lack of height and speed. Simply put, the man seems to find a way to making that all important tackle. Just ask Robben and the Germans as their high wattage attack ground to a halt. He made 28 tackles, the highest number in the World Cup. Alongside that impressive figure, an equally astonishing 536 passes with a 90% completion rate that made the backfield hum with synaptic connections. Pirlo, the visionary who can find an open player with all the subversive quality of a Banksy masterpiece. His best touch could be a non-touch a la Claudio Marchisio’s goal against England. Or the back of the net bending the time space continuum through his set pieces. There seems to be no waning of his powers waning as Pirlo has mastered Kill the Buddha non-duality. Bringing him to Juventus was a master stroke.

Does Wilshere have the capability to set aside his creative impulses to switch to grunt work? Switch his headlights on at the right opportunity to find the open player? He can fly into tackles but as holding midfielder, you only have to watch Claude Makelele, who though undersized had unerring timing to stop players in their tracks, winning the ball back. Showing necessary anticipation by intercepting passes which lessens the pressure to tackle and reduce the danger of a booking and more importantly launch counterattacks. Keep midfield control with short, lateral passing, to open up lanes once an opportunity presents itself. For Wilshere the mental frame might be the most important. How does one unlearn all that ego soaking hype and learn to insert himself into the subconscious of the game? To do the little things that have a cumulative effect in altering the course of the match without drawing attention. You might start deprogramming by listening to Public Enemy.

Arsenal’s Gilberto was known as the hidden wall. And when he left in 2008, was also the last time the club had a true blue holding midfielder. That position has been ever since held by a unsatisfactory patchwork of reconfigured players who check off one attribute but not the others. Now into many iterations of Arsenal’s soft underbelly being exposed. Utd’s sinkhole of a midfield is down to the absence of the under appreciated Michael Carrick, sitting behind all those counterattacks fanning out like a dust devil.

It is easy to see Wenger backing Hodgson’s experiment to succeed. Wilshere’s Arsenal place could be cemented and the club can keep its English core.