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When Jack Wilshere broke through at Arsenal, he became the youngest player at the time to make his league debut for the club.
Like Cesc Fabregas before him, he was just 16 when he made his first appearance for the club in 2008. He went on to become one of the most naturally gifted players to come through Hale End, but unfortunately, constant injuries prevented him from ever fulfilling his true potential.
Retiring prematurely at just 30, Wilshere has since turned to coaching, and is now the manager of Luton Town in League One.
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He was a confident young player from the start, but as he admitted on The Athletic’s Truth or Padel series on YouTube, there was one senior teammate in that Arsenal dressing room he never quite felt comfortable around.
Asked by David Ornstein who his most annoying teammate was, Jack Wilshere didn’t take long to pick Emmanuel Adebayor.
“I’m gonna say Adebayor,” he said. “I was only young when I started playing with him. I was quite confident, but he would make me feel a little bit nervous. I never could quite work him out, like whether he liked me, whether he didn’t like me. So yeah, I’m gonna say him.”
Adebayor was at his peak when Wilshere was breaking through, having scored 30 goals in all competitions in 2007/08. That was a season Arsenal really should have won the league. They were five points clear before things fell apart after the draw at Birmingham, but Adebayor’s goals and a young Cesc Fabregas coming into his own made them a joy to watch.
In total, the Togolese striker scored 62 goals in 142 appearances for Arsenal, 46 of them in the Premier League. His time at the club ended on a sour note, though. He joined Manchester City for £25million in the summer of 2009, and a few months later he ran the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the Arsenal fans after scoring against his old club.
He soon made matters worse when he joined Tottenham, first on loan in 2011 before making the move permanent a year later.