LONDON. — Paul Scholes has hailed Jack Wilshere as England’s best soccer player at present. The Arsenal midfielder starred in England’s wins against San Marino and Estonia during the international break. Roy Hodgson’s men have also defeated Switzerland in a perfect start to their Euro 2016 qualifying campaign with Wilshere to the fore in all three matches. And one of England’s greatest-ever midfielders now believes Wilshere can be the hub of the national side.

“I thought Jack Wilshere had two very good games for England during the last week,” Scholes said in his column for the Independent.
“I would go one step further than that and say that, at the moment, Wilshere is England’s best player.

“The penny has dropped and he has added another dimension to his game. He has always been capable of that intricate passing game. Now he can play the ball long, too.
“The quality of some of those passes into Wayne Rooney in Estonia was very high.

“You cannot underestimate the importance of eye-contact between a midfielder and a striker in those situations.”
Scholes’ words represent a huge turnaround from earlier in the year, when the Manchester United great slammed Wilshere’s development since bursting on to the scene from Arsenal’s youth team.

Scholes said back in March: “Jack Wilshere came on the scene and what a top young player he looked, but he’s never really gone on.
“He needs characters like Vieira next to him to take him to the next level.

“Injuries haven’t helped him, but he doesn’t look any better a player now than when he was 17.”
The pair subsequently cleared the air when Wilshere tracked down Scholes to question the United legend about his comments.
“It was a bit strange, out of the blue,” Wilshere said at the time. “I remember watching it, he was having a go at Arsenal, and I was thinking “Is he going to come for me?”

“I actually spoke to him after. We had quite a good chat. He is entitled to his opinion but I just wanted to know.
“If it had come from a rubbish player I could say “what are you talking about?” But it came from Paul Scholes.

“So I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I spoke to him, he explained it a bit better and told me what he thought I should work on.
For me he was the best English midfielder of all time.” — Mailonline.

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