It may have seemed like a normal overcast Monday morning, but a Royal Mail postman could tell something was up when he arrived at Luton Town’s main reception at Kenilworth Road.
“It’s busier than usual today,” he said. “A lot more cars in the car park.”
He was quickly back out of the door again, but he was right. Journalists were packing into Luton Town’s press lounge for the unveiling of Jack Wilshere in his first full-time managerial role. The former England midfielder has previously held coaching jobs for Arsenal’s Under-18s and Norwich City, but he is now running the show back at the club where he joined the academy as an eight-year-old.
Now 33, Wilshere has wanted to go into coaching for the past four years. The season before he took charge of Arsenal’s Under-18s, when he hadn’t officially retired from playing, he was helping coach across multiple academy age groups while training with Mikel Arteta’s first team.
He has previously cited Arteta and Arsenal academy manager Per Mertesacker as inspirations for this new chapter in his life, and he turned to the Spaniard again when considering his initial step into first-team management.
Wilshere asked Arteta for advice (Photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
“About a year ago, I asked Mikel when he knew he was ready,” Wilshere said during his unveiling press conference. “He laughed and said, ‘You just have to jump in and swim as hard as you can.’
“He’s done that really well and this feels a little similar. It’s a different level but Arsenal wasn’t a nice place when Mikel went in. The fans weren’t sure what was happening and he built complete unity and trust in what he was doing.”
Arsenal were 10th in the Premier League when Arteta took charge in December 2019, a major contrast from their recent title challenges. Wilshere is taking charge of Luton Town as they sit 11th in League One, just two years after a season in the Premier League.
They have won five, lost five and drawn one of their 11 league games this season. The team are not beyond saving, but it was clear something new was needed when they parted ways with Matt Bloomfield last Monday.
Wilshere’s only previous experience of managing senior players came in similar circumstances at the end of last season. He was part of Norwich City’s coaching staff and then interim head coach for their final two games of the year after Johannes Hoff Thorup was sacked — an experience he credits with helping to secure his new role. He oversaw a win and a draw in those games, but more than implementing a style of play, instilling confidence and energy was key to that group of players.
Music was a big addition when he took charge at Norwich, and while sitting alongside Luton Town’s CEO Gary Sweet, that same need for energy came across in abundance.
“When people talk about energy, it’s a belief,” he said. “To give players belief, they need clarity. I think they need to be clear with what they’re doing. There needs to be an environment where training is fun. If you’re enjoying training, naturally it becomes competitive. We need to be competitive with Luton. That’s what Luton’s about. The fans, they want to see that.
We need to feel where the group are at as well. The beautiful thing is you’ve got players that have been on that journey. So what is it actually that got us there? That is inside of you. I need to speak to them and feel that. Then we can work out what type of music we’re going to play.”
Wilshere’s 2010 England shirt from 2010 in the Luton Town club lounge (Credit: Art de Roché)
When quizzed on appointing such a young manager, Sweet said that more experienced managers were in the process but that Wilshere impressed with his knowledge, passion and maturity.
He then added: “An interesting little bit of data that we discovered in this process is that in the last five years, eight managers have been appointed in League One with no management experience at all. Four of them got promoted.
“So, in so many ways, that fresh energy and approach from somebody without experience can certainly go in your favour. And it’s a tried and trusted model that we’ve had before.”
Wilshere will not be discovering the ins and outs of managing in League One on his own. He will have the experienced Chris Powell as his assistant manager. Another former England international, Powell is vastly experienced, having managed 287 games for five Football League clubs between 2010 and 2019.
On how the dynamic between himself and Wilshere would work, Powell said: “It’s a two-way relationship. I’ve been in the game a long time but it’s great to be part of someone’s journey. He’s got a lot of knowledge already; it’s now about imparting that to a group.
“Jack will have core principles that won’t change. We can’t give the players too much information to begin with. It’s about drip-feeding what he wants to see day in, day out. There may be times where I’ll have a quiet word with him on how we approach things, but it’s his team, his club. I’m here to support him, the players, the wider staff and the crowd. It’s important we understand what they want to move forward.”
When asked what to expect from ‘a Jack Wilshere team’ and whether it would be similar to the Arsenal teams he played in, the Luton Town manager said: “I don’t think you can copy and paste as a manager, that’s for sure. That’s in terms of on the pitch but also behaviours and how you act. You are who you are as a coach and that’s important.”
The past three years have gone some way towards Wilshere finding out who he is as a coach. He says he’s calmer on the touchline than when he fell over at the Emirates when celebrating a last-gasp, extra-time winner from Myles Lewis-Skelly against Manchester City that took his Under-18s to the FA Youth Cup final in 2023. He also says that after his Norwich experience, he spent a week away at St. George’s Park (England’s national training centre) to complete his UEFA Pro Licence, where he was surrounded by Football League coaches.
Lewis-Skelly celebrates Arsenal’s last-minute winner in the FA Youth Cup semi-final in 2023 (Photo: Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
When it comes to being another former England international who is managing in a league lower than he played in (like Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard), he says he stepped back to look at their journeys and made sure he was competent and comfortable with what he would be jumping into.
“Being a good player doesn’t make you a good coach,” Wilshere says. “People will judge ex-players as the personality of the player plus the coach. I want to be clear that I can use my playing experiences, but now I’m a coach and please judge me like that.
“Many things are different, and you have to understand that. You have to understand how the club works internally, and I wanted to be clear that I didn’t want to step up to a first team until I was ready to do that. When I went to Norwich, that taught me so much. I was in the real world. I was competing for three points. It wasn’t always easy.
“Now this is a new Jack Wilshere, a different Jack Wilshere who is hungry to achieve great things and so grateful to Gary and the club for giving me that opportunity.”