'Smoking' Wilshere the butt of England jokes

Jack Wilshere has held his hands up to an error of judgement after being pictured smoking – but it has not saved him from some cutting dressing room banter.

Pictured with a cigarette in his hand on a night out last week, the Arsenal midfielder initially claimed he was holding it for someone else before finally admitting he had been smoking it.

He has since been reprimanded by Gunners boss Arsene Wenger and issued an apology, although that has failed to earn him any credit in the dressing room.

“It is non-stop,” said Wilshere.

“After the game on Sunday the physio, Colin Lewin, said ’you smoked that shot’. When I am getting angry in training they say ’calm down, have a fag’.

“We move on eventually but everyone is going to make a joke of it and that’s fine.”

Even the Arsenal fans have had a laugh at Wilshere’s expense, chanting ’he smokes when he wants’ during Sunday’s draw at West Brom.

“I would prefer them to change it to ’he scores when he wants’,” said the midfielder.

Yet Wilshere accepts it was an error of judgement.

“I am not a smoker,” he said. “I don’t smoke 10 a day as some have been saying.

“It was a mistake. I am not just a footballer. I am a top athlete.”

Wilshere needs to be fully focused on Friday when England go hunting a crucial victory against Montenegro that would confirm automatic qualification should Poland defeat Ukraine at the same time.

It would be a moment of immense pride for the 21-year-old, one he is not convinced would be replicated by someone whose English roots were less strong.

In particular, 18-year-old Manchester United wide-man Adnan Januzaj, who has been linked with an England international career over the past few days now it has been established he would qualify for the Three Lions on residency grounds in February 2018.

It seems unlikely that is the path Januzaj would choose to follow given he was born in Belgium and is also available for Serbia, Albania and Turkey as well as Kosovo, although they are not an officially sanctioned FIFA country.

However, Wilshere is uncomfortable with the mere prospect.

“The only people who should play for England are English people,” he said.

“If you live in England for five years it doesn’t make you English.

“If I went to Spain and lived there for five years I am not going to play for Spain.

“We have to remember what we are. We are English. We tackle hard, are tough on the pitch and are hard to beat.

“We have great characters. You think of Spain and you think technical but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard. We have to remember that.”