Arsenal star Jack Wilshere steals march on Chelsea's Ross Barkley in England battle

MINUTE by minute, game by game this winter, Jack Wilshere has gradually become more and more important to Arsenal.

The 26-year-old, who ended last season with a broken leg and began this one as the most outside of outsiders at the Emirates, a player confined to the margins.
But since early December, Wilshere has been in Arsene Wenger’s team and playing better and better, missing only one of the last seven games. And now he is suddenly again crucial. Ross Barkley is a player, an England hopeful, one for the future, just like Wilshere.
Spurning a move to Chelsea in the summer, he then missed the entire first half of the season with a hamstring injury, refusing to sign a new deal with Everton and eventually, on January 5, finally getting the £15 million move to Chelsea he wanted.
A little later than Wilshere, Barkley, 24, was back in action, coming on as a substitute for Chelsea as Willian limped off injured, for his first piece of action of the entire campaign.
For both players, the next five months are crucial.
We want our best players to be available and in good form.”
Exactly the same words could apply to Barkley - who currently has 22 caps to Wilshere’s 34. For both, the ticket for the plane to Russia in the summer rests on their performances - and fitness - between now and the end of the season.
The only game that Wilshere has missed in recent weeks for the Gunners was the miserable FA Cup third round defeat at the hands of Championship side Nottingham Forest. In every other game, often operating from a deep role allowing him to carry the ball forward, which is his strength.

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