West Ham United midfielder Jack Wilshere is likely to miss out on a first team spot to new signing Pablo Fornals, according to Football London journalist Sam Inkersole.
The Hammers reporter claims that the England international is the likeliest candidate to drop out of Manuel Pellegrini’s prospective team for next season after the playmaker’s arrival from Villarreal.
The 23-year-old was confirmed as a West Ham player on Friday, and Inkersole believes it’s the former Arsenal star who would have to make way to accommodate him next campaign.
Manuel Lanzini and Felipe Anderson are expected to partner Fornals in an attack-minded West Ham line up next season, which Inkersole believes will see Wilshere drop out.
OPINION
It’s going to be interesting to see how Pellegrini fits all these players in next season. He has a lot of attacking midfielders now, but not too many reliable central midfielders. It’s likely that the Chilean will simply choose between Wilshere, Declan Rice and Mark Noble next time out – and really that’s just a choice between Wilshere and Noble in the battle to partner Rice. Further forward, Lanzini and Anderson seem pretty guaranteed starters, while Fornals must be considered in that same bracket as well. So that just leaves the choice between Wilshere and Noble. At the moment, of course, you’d have to give the edge to the West Ham skipper. Noble was tremendous over the second half of the season, so it would be immensely harsh to drop him out for a player who cannot stay fit for any length of time. However, Wilshere has more natural ability than Noble, there’s no doubt about that. So this could well turn out to be a difficult choice for Pellegrini.
