England manager Roy Hodgson has today come to the defence of injured midfielder Jack Wilshere, after a picture posted on his girlfriend Alex Coe's instagram appeared to show the Arsenal man with a shisha pipe in his hand. Having had previous run ins with Arsene Wenger for being pictured publicly smoking, Wilshere has again come in for criticism from those who believe a professional footballer should not be making such lifestyle choices, but Hodgson doesn't believe it is a serious issue.
When asked about the picture, Hodgson admitted that he himself had tried shisha before and he believes it is a non-issue:
As an ex-cigar smoker, when I tried it [shisha] I thought it was a complete nonsense, I couldn’t understand who would do it. Apart from a faint fruity taste in your mouth that was about the end of it.
The England boss then continued to explain how Wilshere would not have to explain himself when they next meet, and praised Arsene Wenger's handling of the situation:
As far as I am concerned that is a club matter and Arsène [Wenger] dealt with it very, very well. If you are asking me, in an ideal world, is that an ideal thing to happen? Of course it isn’t but we don’t live in an ideal world. I am happy it has been dealt with and it won’t occupy a lot of my time with Jack when I see him because we have a football match to win.
Wilshere has recently returned to full training for Arsenal and is expected to feature in the first team sooner rather than later.
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