When a new young sports star emerges, with the potential for supreme universally-admired talent, there is often a clamour to liken them to an established legend. It helps people to make sense of the talent and to define expectations. This particularly tends to happen when there is a void to fill. Nobody can just be themselves, they have to be the new somebody else. Freddie Flintoff could not just be the current Freddie Flintoff, he had to be the ‘new Ian Botham’. At Arsenal, Abou Diaby could not merely develop in his own shadow, he had to be the ‘new Patrick Vieira’. Poor old Phillipe Senderos was expected to be the ‘new Tony Adams’. It doesn’t always help. Jack Wilshere has emerged in the last year or so to great expectations and, after a loan spell at Bolton last season, he has started to become a fledgling regular in the Arsenal first team. Hallelujah! Long gone hopefully are the days when a promising young Arsenal runtlet would disappear from view and end up being sold to

Simon Rose sings the praises of Jack Wilshere Bradinho

Wilshere has the classic low centre of gravity, like Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi

Rotherham for fifty grand. Due to persistent firstteam action and even full England honours, Wilshere looks to be a strong talent and one that is here to stay. Wilshere is left footed, astute, elusive and tremendously skilful. He is prepared to make tackles, creates perceptive chances and scores impressive goals. He is combative and tough to shirk off the ball. He pulls the team back into matches where we are struggling and can make strong contributions at either end of the pitch. He must be the ‘new Liam Brady’ then. I am a bit too young to remember Brady too much, only really catching the tail-end of his Arsenal career, but what I saw impressed me and I knew from my Dad and my uncles that Brady was something special. When Brady played I knew it was important, when he got injured I knew it was drastic. A little bit like the effect that a Cesc Fabregas absence has on Arsenal now. Wilshere has the classic low centre of gravity, like Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi,

which is often earmarked as a sign of high quality. If you have great personal balance, allied with close control, vision and a deceptive turn of pace, the opposition struggles to stop you weaving your magic. Brazilians have an admirable way to nickname emerging stars: the player’s name is lengthened with the suffix of ‘-inho’, for ‘little’, as in Robinho and Ronaldinho. If Jack Wilshere is the ‘new Liam Brady’, or at least is our hope for a similar ilk of player, then he is our ‘little Brady’. Jack Wilshere is Arsenal’s ‘Bradinho’. Arsene Wenger has talked of not wanting to land too much pressure on Wilshere too early and to let him develop at a natural pace. Yet Wilshere has enjoyed a significant run of appearances this season, enough to suggest that either the club feels that Jack is ready, or, frankly, that we need him. If Arsenal get it right with Wilshere’s development, affording him the environment in which to become his own man, then we could reap sweet rewards in the seasons to come. English players rarely tend to move to foreign clubs or move between the top domestic clubs. In

Italy, transfers are practically incestuous between the main sides, but in England once you rise from a smaller club to a big club it is rare to move directly to another big club. If you started at a big English club you tend to stay put if you are something special. Jack certainly fits that bill. As Wilshere has developed well so far, coming through Arsenal’s

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