By ANTONY KASTRINAKIS
ARSENE WENGER is agonising over whether to start Jack Wilshere today — to fire up Arsenal’s flat midfield.
Wilshere is still not fully fit after 14 months out with an ankle injury but Wenger may give him an hour against QPR.
The Gunners boss does not want to risk a setback for the England star but also knows Wilshere could give Arsenal some much-needed spark.
Wenger’s midfield failed to fashion any chances in successive defeats by Norwich and Schalke.
And the Emirates boss said: “I am considering that he wants to play, it is an important game.
“But we want players to be ready physically and he has not played for 14 months. So it is important.
“Ideally, it was planned for him to play next week in the Capital One Cup at Reading. Physically he is at 80 to 85 per cent.
“You have to consider first he has no setback and that you don’t put players in situations, where they are tired and don’t have coordination, and they pick up an injury.
“If you look at a more selfish view you can say a guy can play an hour. But during this hour it is important he is fit to play.”
Wenger knows with Arsenal already 10 points behind leaders Chelsea the fans are anxious.
But he insisted Arsenal’s stars DO care and that they were in shock at their inability to play free-flowing football against Norwich which then affected them against Germans Schalke on Wednesday.
The Frenchman added: “This team cares. When you don’t get the result the confidence goes quickly.
“That is part of the quality you have to show, that we’re capable of dealing with that. The result at Norwich maybe affected them more than they would think.
“I don’t say the players are fragile but you could see with Schalke that we played OK in the first half but slowly dropped. Is it physical or confidence? It is difficult to know.”
He conceded that injuries have affected his team’s performances with Abou Diaby, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Kieran Gibbs and Wojciech Szczesny sidelined.
Wenger added: “It can change quickly with Jack and Alex coming back. At the moment we’re short. Diaby is two more weeks at least. Szczesny one more.”
The Gunners chief was the only senior figure to escape scathing criticism from fans at Thursday’s AGM.
Majority shareholder Stan Kroenke, chief executive Ivan Gazidis and chairman Peter Hill-Wood came under fire as fans questioned their “spend-less-than-you-earn” approach.
Wenger defended the policy, but the fans’ affection and respect for him is clearly still strong.Another bad result today, however, would really test the strength of that affection.
