If you were around on social media in the inception of football troll pages you'd recognize a few memes tailored for Arsenal.

• Lord Bendtner

• Arsenal and 4th Place

and

• Arsenal and Injuries: Better Love Story Than Twilight

There are a few more but the last one is the main focus here. It was the result of an odd phenomenon where Arsenal players would spend most of their Arsenal career getting treated for injuries. It was truly an odd phenomenon that people still can't explain today. But, perhaps by looking back at Wilshere's career we could understand some of it.

The 2011-2012 Season

Wenger convinced the English FA not to call Jack Wilshere to the Under-21 European Championship squad and they listened. However, less than two months later, on the 21st of July in specific, Arsenal faced New York Red Bull in a friendly where Jack Wilshere walked out due to an ankle injury.

After the match, Wenger and Jack himself said that was just an infection and that Wilshere would be back in a few days. That was literally what Jack wrote on Twitter.

Those "few days" lasted the entire 2011-2012 season as that "infection" diagnosing was actually corrected later to be a fracture. It is what is medically called a stress fracture. The medical team at Arsenal couldn't tell the difference between cracks in bones and infections. If you're looking for a laugh you should really consider searching that period of Arsenal's medical history.

The 2012-2013 Season

Jack Wilshere returned and played most of the season without looking like he missed a step, let alone an entire season. He was playing so well and showing such a fighting spirit that he became the captain after Thomas Vermaelen's injury.

Jack was the reincarnation of Arsenal's greatest generation. The generation where skill met physical presence. A generation that disappeared from Arsenal since 2006 when Wenger picked a player that either had the skill or the physical presence but never both. Jack Wilshere was both.

Jack Wilshere didn't lose a step in the 2013-2014 season as well. But, that was it. Early in that season, Jack Wilshere scored one of the most beautiful team goals in history, a goal that ended up winning BBC's Goal of the Season. Wilshere scored 9 goals in his career, two of which won BBC's Goal of the Season consecutively.

March 2014: The Beginning of the End

On the fifth of March, Wilshere suffered a hairline crack in the foot that sidelined him until the end games of that season. After that an ankle injury in November of the same year sidelined him for 90 days, then he got another ankle injury 3 days later that sidelined him for 36 days but basically ended his 2014-2015 season.

In August of the 2015-2016 season, Wilshere had another hairline crack in calfbone injury which basically ended his season as he only recovered in April, 247 days later. By the way, the last injury was also confirmed as a simple injury that would keep him away for a few days in the beginning. The first assessment was so off that Wilshere actually needed surgery later.

It was quite the common thing in Arsenal, by the way. An Arsenal player could get injured with the initial medical showing that he'd be back in a few days before missing hundreds of days. As Arsenal supporters, we know a player by the name of Abou Diaby, but we never saw him.

That's The Life Of Wilshere

Between 2015 and 2021, Jack Wilshere spent a total of 827 days injured. He made a total of 16 appearances for West Ham, 14 for AFC Bournemouth, and 14 for Danish club AGF.

Throughout these times, Jack Wilshere would be seen holding a cigarette or looking overweight which created a great misconception about him that hid a very dark truth about what was really happening. Something I will elaborate on in the final part tomorrow.