Arsenal Under-18s coach Jack Wilshere is preparing to take the Arsenal way away from Arsenal and take on a first team coaching role at Championship club Norwich City.
Wilshere has been part of the coaching set-up at Arsenal since retiring from playing in 2022 after spells with West Ham United, AFC Bournemouth and Danish outfit AGF. He played 125 Premier League games for the Gunners in a career frequently interrupted by injury.
He’ll link up at Carrow Road with Johannes Hoff Thorup, who is in his first season as Norwich manager and currently has his team in seventh place in the table. They’re outside the play-off places by a single point and have lost just two of Thorup’s first nine league fixtures.
Jack Wilshere is well versed after working at Arsenal under Arsene Wenger and Mikel Arteta
Wilshere was Arsenal’s Player of the Season in 2010/11 and won consecutive FA Cup finals in 2014 and 2015 as well as the FA Youth Cup in 2009. His Under-18 side reached the Youth Cup final in 2023 but were beaten at the Emirates Stadium by West Ham and their experienced manager Kevin Keen.
The 32-year-old heads for Norfolk having absorbed Arsenal’s football philosophy as a youth, a senior player, and a coach. He’s worked under Arsene Wenger and Mikel Arteta and has taken inspiration from both – and former Bournemouth boss Eddie Howe – into his coaching.
“I have always been brought up with the Arsenal Way, which is to dominate the ball, try and create overloads across the pitch and kill teams by having the ball,” he told the Evening Standard.
“Mikel and his staff let us play the game how we see it, but with the same details he would use. We have to do that for the players.”
Wilshere also understands the value of adaptability and has played with both a 4-3-3 and a 4-2-3-1 with his Under-18s, but always with a focus on dominating possession and controlling the match.
The new coach will be the tactical set-up of Thorup’s Norwich but will be expected to encourage more time on the ball, which has hovered around the 50% mark so far this season. They’ve lost one and drawn two of the three matches in which they’ve had the minority share of the ball.
Wilshere’s career trajectory will inevitably be the subject of much speculation in the coming years. Bringing him into senior football at a high level is a show of faith from Norwich sporting director Ben Knapper, and as an Arteta acolyte with Arsenal in his blood the 32-year-old will constantly be pointed back towards North London if he’s successful.
With the Gunners finding a hardened winning edge under Arteta and in the hunt for the Premier League title season after season, the Emirates hot seat won’t be an easy one to inherit irrespective of Wilshere’s long history at the club.
