JACK WILSHERE last night taunted Manchester United and Manchester City after their Champions League exits.
Arsenal midfielder Wilshere claimed the northern rivals’ embarrassing failure proved London is capital of English football, not Manchester.
City and United might be setting the pace at home but both crashed out of the Champions League after the group stages, leaving Arsenal and Chelsea flying the Premier League flag.
Wilshere said: “It’s disappointing for English football but London teams are showing the northern teams the way.
“For me, United is the biggest disappoint because they are the biggest club in Manchester.
“City have spent the money trying to compete with them and it’s not worked this year. Talking about teams going out of Europe, I can’t remember the last time we didn’t qualify out of the group.”
The midfielder is aiming to be back from his ankle injury by the time the Champions League resumes in February.
He said: “It’s coming on well. I don’t want to put a specific date on my return but hopefully early in the New Year or sometime in January if all goes well.”
Wilshere insists Arsenal can still win the title after they stormed back into contention following a dreadful start.
He said: “Why not? *Manchester City are strong favourites but if we carry on our run we’ll keep *plugging away. Hopefully *towards the end of the season they will slip up and we will keep going.”
He is also so confident Arsenal will finish above Spurs that Wilshere raised the stakes in his charity bet from the original £3,000.
He said: “I’m going to raise it to £5,000.
“Tottenham are due a bad patch and I can see us winning every game from now on.”
But Wilshere risked upsetting Gunners fans by suggesting gaffer Arsene Wenger should succeed Fabio Capello as England coach next summer.
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailystar.co.uk/football/...or-Euro-flops/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailystar.co.uk/football/...or-Euro-flops/</a>
