Arsene Wenger's long nightmare is over. Jack Wilshere will not be with the England U-21 squad as they prepare to take on the world Europe this summer, which will prevent his career being utterly destroyed by the malign force of evil that is Stuart Pearce or something like that. Oh, and Andy Carroll won't be there either, but that's not such a big deal*.
Wilshere, apparently, wanted to be included, which led to some Arsenal fans questioning whether he should be allowed to play (for his own good, of course). However, Wilshere was shown GPS footage of his movement throughout matches over the course of the season and agreed with Arsenal's conclusion that he was on the verge of injury:
Over the last few weeks I have been feeling tired and my GPS results have shown that. It shows I am heading for an injury and that is the last thing I want. Especially heading into the Euros. There are players like Steven Gerrard who have been injured while I have been playing and I want to keep my place in the team and I have to be 100% to do that.
While it's easy to sympathise with the club when they say that Wilshere needs a summer off - his wages are paid by Arsenal, after all, it's also extremely easy to point to that quote as an example of gross overuse by a player barely in him majority by the Gunners. You know why he's tired? Because Wenger played him all the time despite his performance tanking as he racked up the games.
Anyway, the England U-21s are significantly weakened by the news, of course, but this may just be an opportunity for someone else to step up and take Wilshere's mantle in midfield. Jordan Henderson, anyone?
*Actually, this is a slightly interesting aside: Wilshere has been overworked this year and thus for fear of injury Arsenal didn't want to include him in the U-21 squad, whereas Carroll has not been overworked this year because of injury. So including him, presumably, was totally, cool - until it turned out he was actually too injured to play.