Ramsey and Wilshere turn from Arsenal team-mates into foes

It was 2008 when Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey first stepped on to the pitch together as teenagers, both handed their Premier League debuts by Arsene Wenger as late substitutes in Arsenal’s 4-0 win over Blackburn.

The pair played together more than 100 times before their final joint-outing 10 years later, as the Gunners crashed out of the Europa League semi-finals against Atletico Madrid.

Now, today, those two old friends will stand opposite each other in the dugout and show off everything they have learned along the way, as they face off on the final day of the Championship season in their early ventures in first-team management.

Ramsey took caretaker charge of Cardiff for the last three matches of the campaign following the sacking of Omer Riza but could not prevent the Bluebirds from being relegated after a goalless draw with West Brom last weekend.

Wilshere, meanwhile, was handed the interim reigns after Johannes Hoff Thorup’s dismissal at Norwich and is understood to be the front-runner to be handed them on a permanent basis in the summer.

Even though it is the earliest of days in their burgeoning coaching careers, you can already see — and hear — how much they have been influenced by those who came before them.

‘What Arsene installed into us is having that freedom to express ourselves,’ said Ramsey, whose early messages to his players were less about the tactics and more about getting his principles and habits across.

Ramsey, who has taken charge with best mate and former flat-mate Chris Gunter, struggled to sleep ahead of his first game, against Oxford, such were the nerves of leading the club he joined at the age of eight and to whose training ground he used to drive as a teenager in a Ford Fiesta before moving to Arsenal in 2008.

He has chewed the ear of Craig Bellamy. The Wales boss has been a key sounding board for Ramsey, and vice versa, with Bellamy often using him in tactical discussions on international duty. Ramsey often visited Bellamy at Wales’ Dragon Park home.

The 34-year-old Ramsey, who grew up not far down the road in Caerphilly, returned to the club in the summer of 2023 with the hopes of returning them to the Premier League.

Instead, he suffered relegation in just his second game as a manager. Just hours later, a tearful Ramsey gave a speech at the club’s end-of-season awards. Ramsey wants to be a full-time coach one day but still wants to keep playing after his contract at Cardiff expires in the summer.

He was not the only one having to hot foot it from an early game in charge. Wilshere ran the London Marathon less than 24 hours after his first match, a goalless draw with Middlesbrough. Wilshere ran to raise money for the British Heart Foundation after his daughter, Siena, required surgery to fix a hole in her heart when five years old.

His debut matchday as a head coach involved a 3km marathon warm-up run before his first team talk. He, too, spoke of the energy, hunger and desire to win your duels, as he put it ‘the basics a footballer needs’.

It was Per Mertesacker who took a chance on Wilshere, feeling low after calling time on his playing days, and appointed him to Arsenal’s academy staff. Wilshere would later lead the Under 18s to the FA Youth Cup final in two years in charge.

Parents loved him, not just because of the stardust of saying they were speaking to an Arsenal legend about their son’s progress but also for how open he was.

One told Mail Sport how Wilshere called their son on the same evening after games to explain why he was dropped so he would not stew on it overnight.

At Norwich, there was more music playing at the Norwich training ground than before. Blue Monday by New Order blasted out of the changing room at Boro’s Riverside Stadium.

Wilshire encouraged Pete Dye, the Norwich kitman, to give the final speech before the players walked out for the game.

Wilshere has not just Wenger to draw from but Mikel Arteta, David Moyes and Eddie Howe. He takes something from everyone.

‘From Arsene, I try to take the way he was as a leader and man manager and the belief he gave me,’ Wilshere told Mail Sport in March.

‘When I think of Eddie Howe, I think about really, really zooming in on developing the individual. I saw Mikel coach, and how passionate he was about developing the individual and also developing a playing style and coaching every moment, it really inspired me.’

Now it is Wilshere and Ramsey’s turn to inspire the next generation.