The injury status of Arsenal’s English double-act Theo Walcott and Jack Wilshere has been the story on everyone’s lips this week, with Arsene Wenger adding fuel to the media fire by revealing that both will be fit for the Gunners’ game with Southampton this weekend.

Firstly, Wenger quelled any rumourings of his outrage directed at the Football Association surrounding the amount of game time accumulated by injury-prone midfielder Jack Wilshere over the International break.

Wilshere has not featured heavily for Arsenal recently in the Premier League due to the troublesome ankle injury that kept him sidelined for a lengthy spell last season. Allegedly, a deal was struck between the FA and Arsenal preventing the 21-year-old from playing in both games.

However, Wilshere did feature in both the 2-0 loss to Chile and the more recent 1-0 defeat to Germany at Wembley.

Jack played 71 minutes as Alexis Sanchez ran the show in the first game, and also came from the bench to replace Tom Cleverley with little under half an hour left against Joachim Loew’s Germans.

Wenger? Angry? Never!

Despite featuring in both games, Arsene Wenger was quick to extinguish the reports that claimed he was angry with manager Roy Hodgson over the issue.

Wenger was also rapid to quash the rumours that developed namely from newspapers The Daily Mail and The Daily Mirror that Wilshere had picked up a knock in the second game which would keep him out of this Sunday’s game:

“First of all Jack is not injured, that was not the right information”

“Secondly, I have no problem with the FA, they respected completely what they told me and it was [for Wilshere] to play in one game and be on the bench in the other.”

“They did that very well. So there is no misunderstanding there. Exactly [they did what we agreed].”

This came after Wilshere himself had taken to Twitter to express his disgust at the newspaper’s article:

@JackWilshere: “@MirrorFootball good lie today on how I am worried about my fitness before the World Cup! Please let me know when actually said that?” He angrily reacted.

Up and coming competition

The report had claimed that Wilshere was sweating over his injury worries in time for the World Cup, a report which – although untrue in itself – was unintentionally correct for the wrong reasons.

Wilshere, who has been outshone by the performances of Aaron Ramsey, Mathieu Flamini and Mesut Ozil in centre-midfield, claimed that the current breed of U21’s will be breathing down his neck for a spot on the plane to Brazil in 2014. When asked if his spot was “nailed on”, Jack replied:

“No, not at all. You have seen over the last couple of months, the talent there is, even in the Under-21s, Ravel Morrison and all these players coming through. You are never guaranteed, and cannot rest on your laurels.

“You are only as good as your last game, they say. So, when the time comes, I have to be on top form and there will be a lot of players looking to be as well.

"There are some big games coming up for the club at the moment, so I am just concentrating on that. By playing well for your club is where you are going to get into the England World Cup squad.”

Wilshere faces competition from the likes of Tom Cleverley, James Ward-Prowse, Ravel Morrison and Ross Barkley, as well as the more experienced Michael Carrick, Frank Lampard and Gareth Barry in order to partner Steven Gerrard in midfield in Brazil.

Theo for Rio

Another man who will face huge competition for club and country in the coming weeks will be returning winger Theo Walcott. Walcott has been sidelined for over 2 months with the abdominal injury which has seen him travel the globe in search of the best medical help.

Walcott took a trip to Germany last month for surgery on the injury which he complained of before the win at home to Stoke earlier on in the season.

And Arsene Wenger has once again been on hand to steady the ship – with troublesome media reports once again claiming that Walcott’s World Cup dreams have been dashed:

"He is one of the players who goes behind [the defence] without the ball," Wenger told Arsenal Player.

"Strikers who get behind the defenders is a very important quality and Theo [Walcott] has that quality.

"Of course you miss a player like Theo Walcott. Theo had a good start to the season, he scored goals, he provided chances and had assists. He can always give you a different option in the game and that is of course vital.

"You always want to have a perfect balance [in attack]," Wenger added. "If you look at our results our balance was not too bad.

"But Theo has different qualities to other players and I am very pleased that he's back."

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