Jack Wilshere has been in a few fantastic positions this season jinking his way through defence’s only to be up against his enemy, his right foot and the trigger was not pulled, chances have disintegrated

Back in the early 90s I spent much of my childhood at Tufnell Park playing fields with my good friends playing football obsessively. We all lived in a five minute radius of the park so it would be after school, weekends and much of any school holidays. Pop off home to grab some dinner then meet you back in a couple of hours to resume the game of headers and volleys, 60 seconds or my personal favourite, three and in.

One day I managed to convince my dad to borrow his camcorder. Not quite sure how as it was his pride and joy and camcorders were not quite as cheap as they are these days but nevertheless I did. Will the tennis playing Tottenham fan had broken his arm so he was not able to join in our games but rather than standing around doing nothing he volunteered to film us playing these various games. I still have the VHS tape somewhere at home today which I think I will have a look for now that I am writing this.

Anyway, I remember the first time we sat in Stevens house watching the footage for the first time and I remember being quite shocked at how one dimensional I was. I liked a dribble, still do today but back then I was all left foot, going outside my man every single time, the ball never touching my right foot. In the three and in games I ended up running around in circles and never progressing forward.

Looking back at it now, I am quite surprised of my lack of awareness especially considering my favourite player was Anders Limpar who until this year was the most two footed player I had ever seen play the game. I had taken what I viewed on board and practiced on my right foot almost daily. Learning how to cross, to pass and to beat players. I never mastered the art of shooting with my weaker side, still cannot do so today. But the work I put in made me a much better player so much so that using my weaker foot while not as strong as my left came as second nature.

We used to laugh at Nigel Winterburn at being so unbelievably one sided, apart from when he failed to clear a ball inside the Manchester United penalty area at Old Trafford due to the ball being on his right peg, that cost us a goal one year.

It has been since those years I look at footballers and frown. I could not understand why professional footballers like Paul Merson were so one footed and would do all they could but use their weaker side. I could not understand why a amateur teenager could put in the work to improve the old swinger but players paid vast sums of money did not do the same. At least that is how it seemed.

Anders was my idol partly for this reason, it was amazing to see him play outside of the foot passes into players paths with his weaker side and it made me obsessive with wanting to use my right foot. I never thought I’d see another Arsenal player with a stronger weaker side than Anders in the rest of my life but I was wrong.

Arsene had bought Spaniard Santi Cazorla and instead of having an almost identical weaker foot, I had watched a player with two feet. Cross field passes instep or outside of the left? no friggin problem. Smashing a shot from 30 yards with the left? who cares. Unbelievable.

A few years back watching Theo Walcott tapping the ball towards the opposition left back reminded me of myself, everyone in the stadium knew where he was going to go next, thankfully that has changed today but when you watch Santi on the ball in the middle of the pitch with two players closing him down, you have no idea where he is going to go and what foot he is going to use to get away from them.

Jack Wilshere has been in a few fantastic positions this season jinking his way through defence’s only to be up against his enemy, his right foot and the trigger was not pulled, chances have disintegrated in a fraction of a second.

Jack will end up being one of the top players in Europe without improving his right foot but if he wants to aim to become the best, he has a lot of work to do.

Wenger speaking about Cazorla said:

“Where he stands out is his outstanding technical talent,” the manager told Arsenal Player. “Where he is absolutely fantastic as well is his love for the game. He loves football.

“His low centre of gravity and change of direction makes him a little bit like Jack. Both of them have that extreme quality that can destabilise any opponent.

“He is so ambidextrous. I know that he is right-footed but you don’t see a real difference between right and left.

“I would say for a midfielder, it is absolutely vital to be ambidextrous today. In the education, that is something for the midfielders that we have to make absolutely compulsory at a very young age now.”

Interesting for Arsene to say that, I wonder if Arsene has training sessions on improving weaker sides. I know van Persie developed hugely in that area in what seemed like a short space of time.

In my opinion it should have always been compulsory that every professional footballer, regardless of position be able to use both feet. It is a little like singers not being able to sing live, oh. Ok, how about a postman who doesn’t deliver in the rain. That was a poor example but you catch my drift.

While your Santi’s do not grow on trees, there are a few players in the squad who are not afraid to use both feet. Francis Coquelin is one, Koscielny is another but not enough in the game do. Hopefully with Cazorla’s introduction to the Arsenal squad the younger players can get on with practicing, not at Tufnell Park playing fields but at London Colny.