"Not shocked" - Norwich City verdict given over abrupt Jack Wilshere departure | OneFootball

The former Arsenal under-18s boss is set to leave Norwich after seven months with the club.

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Jack Wilshere is set to leave his role at Norwich City following the reveal that he will not be their next permanent boss.

Ben Knapper, the club's sporting director, revealed last week that Wilshere would not be the one to replace Johannes Hoff Thorup on a full-time basis, after he was handed the reins temporarily for the final two games of the 2024/25 campaign. Norwich, instead, are going to look externally for their next boss.

He moved to Carrow Road in October from Arsenal, where he worked as the club's under-18s manager alongside Knapper, who had been the loans manager for the Premier League club before he joined Norwich in November 2023.

Despite signing a two-and-a-half-year deal, Wilshere will leave the club just over half a year after arriving in Norfolk.

Jack Wilshere's Norwich City exit has come as no surprise

The former England midfielder stated in his first press conference as interim boss that he wanted to be a manager some day.

Because of this drive, it comes as no shock to Football League World's Norwich fan pundit, Zeke Downes, that the 33-year-old is going to seek out pastures new.

Zeke told FLW: "I'm not shocked at all at the fact that Wilshere is going to leave, because at this point it seemed like he wanted a managerial role.

"I can't see a world in which he stayed and then hung around for the next manager (to go) because that should be a longer-term project of more than a season, unless Wilshere was going to stay for one more year and then go.

"If Thorup hadn't have left, he'd have stayed. Now that he isn't being offered the job, I was expecting that he would leave.

"It's been a bit of a short-lived thing with him now, because it has only been a season, but he looks promising.

"He's got a lot of drive and a lot of motivation to achieve good stuff, so I could see him turning into a really good manager later on, and it'll be a shame if that isn't with us.

"I think it would have been too early to hire him, and, the fact that we weren't going to hire him,

"I can see why for his career and drive that he'd want to look elsewhere because he feels he's ready for a manager job - it's understandable."

Jack Wilshere shouldn't be overly ambitious in his job hunt after Norwich City departure

Managing a youth team is very different to managing a men's team. It comes with completely different challenges, schedules and the like that Wilshere has only been exposed to, from the coaching side of things, for the past seven months.

He did well enough in his two interim games in charge versus Middlesbrough and Cardiff City, however they don't qualify him to walk into another opportunity at this level.

Even if it's not in England, Wilshere should seek out a position which will allow him to develop himself as a boss without huge expectations being on his shoulders.