‘Jack’s positioning shows how intelligent he is'

Arsenal fans everywhere have delighted in Jack Wilshere’s form this season – and that admiration extends to his team-mates too.

The England international made his first Premier League start for us in 577 days in early December against West Ham, and has since gone on to remind us of his enduring class with a series of impressive performances.

“He has been really playing good football and I am really happy for him because I think he deserves it,” Shkodran Mustafi said. “He really has been doing good for us and I’ve been telling him a lot of times when I was not playing and watching him play in the Europa League or the Carabao Cup, that he has been outstanding. 

“Even when he hasn’t got the ball, the positions that he takes just show you how intelligent he is and how well he understands football. In the last games, even when you gave him the ball, he took the right decisions and made the right passes so he has been terrific.”

Mustafi also touched upon the importance of team spirit, as we head into a vital period of the season.

‘’That’s one of the key points I think, because you have a lot of people in one team so it’s not about individuals, it’s about the team,” he said. “Team spirit is something that can really lift you and really bring you forward. 

“If the team spirit is not right it can break you down playing bad football and you can end up near the bottom of the table. It’s something really, really important and over the years I have been in different teams with different team spirits in different situations and I realised this is sometime really important. When the team spirit is good it makes everything so much easier.’’