Once dubbed ‘the new Gazza’, is Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere now permanently broken?

Having suffered another season-ending injury during a loan spell at Bournemouth, the England international finds himself at a career crossroads.

 This is not how the Jack Wilshere story was supposed to play out.

As a stocky midfielder with a low centre of gravity, comparisons to Paul Gascoigne were inevitably drawn once a fresh, young English talent burst onto the scene in 2008.

Wilshere has been happy to embrace the moniker, conceding after a match-winning performance against Slovenia in June 2015 that he has endeavoured to adopt a similar mindset to an iconic figure of the 1990s.

He said: “Sometimes I think players feel a little bit of fear and a bit of pressure when they play for their country. But he just wanted to go out there.

 He said he felt at his best when he was playing, with the ball at his feet. You do sometimes feel like that. He did it and he was England’s best player. So, it’s worth a try.”

Others have also talked up the Gazza likeness, with Wayne Rooney stating in February 2013: “The way he [Gascoigne] ran with the ball – probably the closest thing I’ve seen to him is Jack, where he gets the ball and runs at players a lot quicker and a lot stronger than people realise.”

The problem for Wilshere is that he has been unable to shake off his ‘the new...’ tag and become a standout performer in his own right.

Over eight years on from his senior debut at Arsenal, it is only in the 2016-17 campaign that he has reached 200 club appearances, at 25 years of age.