WILSHERE HOPE OF RETURNING TO PLAY SUFFERS SET BACK

Injured Arsenal midfielder Jack
Wilshere looks almost certain to
miss at least the opening three
months of the new season in a
fresh blow to his comeback from injury
hopes.
Boss Arsene Wenger said last
weekend that he hoped the
England international, who has
not played a competitive match
for 14 months, could figure for
the Gunners before this coming October.
But Goal.com has learned that,
privately, the club are far more
pessimistic about the midfielder's
recovery and do not expect him
to return to first-team action
until mid of November at the
earliest.
The 20-year-old is regarded as
some way short of full fitness
and has not progressed beyond
light training separate from the
first-team squad, despite
spending the whole summer
working on his rehabilitation at
the club's London
headquarter.
Wilshere has suffered a series of
setbacks in his recovery from an
ankle injury originally sustained
on England duty against
Switzerland on June 4 last year,
leading him to pull out of Euro
2012 after missing the entire
2011-12 campaign and
undergoing minor knee surgery
in May.
Wenger has delivered a series of
increasingly negative medical
bulletins about the recovery of
one of Arsenal and England's
most precious player.
The youngster was left behind to
continue his rehabilitation while
the club embarked on their pre-
season tour to Asia and the club
have been forced to again plan
for the start of the new
campaign without the star of
their 2010-11 season.
"Hopefully, we will get Wilshere
back playing by October," he said.
Wenger told reporters on
Sunday, before Arsenal's final
match of their Asia tour in Hong
Kong china.
"With Abou Diaby returning, it
will be like signing two new
player into the team. The squad will be strong
and competitive again."
Arsenal will continue to handle
Wilshere's recovery carefully, but
it is not the first time that they
have had a player supposedly on
the road to recovery suffer
seemingly an endless setbacks.
The Arsenal medical team have,
in recent years, struggled to get
to the bottom of long-term pain
with striker Tomas Rosicky, Thomas
Vermaelen and Abou Diaby, who
have all had to endure nearly
entire seasons on the sidelines.