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Whelan destroys Wilshere for Oxford effort

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Former Premier League striker Noel Whelan has destroyed West Ham United midfielder Jack Wilshere for his performance against Oxford United on Wednesday.

The 27-year-old was part of the Hammers side that was humiliated 4-0 by the League One side in the Carabao Cup, and BBC pundit Whelan feels he is a long way away from first team contention now.

“If he keeps going on like this, he won’t be breaking into the first-team at West Ham,” he told Football Insider. “Managers want to see a little bit more, they want to see if you can control games and they should be against Oxford, no disrespect.

“They let the club down, let the fans down who have travelled to watch the game, let the manager down who is looking to see a spark to see if they can challenge for a position in the first-team. That 90 minutes was wasted. None of the players there deserve to be anywhere near the first-team because of the way they went out and performed against Oxford.”

OPINION

Wilshere certainly did nothing on Wednesday to suggest that he should be starting games for West Ham in the Premier League. The England international had a big opportunity, like many of his teammates, to send a message to manager Manuel Pellegrini. However, he very much failed to do that. When you look at the statistics from his performance, it tells you that he simply didn’t do enough, despite being neat and tidy in possession. As per WhoScored.com, Wilshere failed to produce an interception or a clearance, while he only made one tackle. He did block a shot, as well, but committed two fouls, the joint second most of any West Ham player. His WhoScored rating for the match of 6.65 tells you that he underperformed in a woeful team effort. He wasn’t the worst Hammer on show at the Kassam Stadium, but he didn’t show Pellegrini anything to try and get the Chilean to put him in his Premier League starting line up week in week out.

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