Gary Neville on Jack Wilshere: He's Got the Mental Strength to be a Top International Player

Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere will continue to be deployed in the deeper midfield role, England coach Gary Neville hinted.

The Arsenal midfielder was deployed in a deeper midfield role than he is used to at club level and enjoyed reasonable amount of success against Switzerland on Monday.

Wilshere has come under some harsh criticism for his lack of development after showing signs of promise early on in his career.

But the former Manchester United full-back and current England assistant coach feels that Wilshere can become a key player for the Three Lions if he stays clear of injury for the foreseeable future.

"He's got the mental strength to be a top international player and he's got the talent, but what he needs to do now is to physically make sure he keeps completely free of injury for a long period of time," Neville told talkSPORT.

The Arsenal star has said after the game that he is going to watch tapes of players like Italy's Andrea Pirlo and Javier Mascherano of Argentina to understand the role of a deep lying midfielder better.

"I know he's said since the game he was looking at clips of [Andrea] Pirlo. Of course, I played with Paul Scholes and if you look at those two, you wouldn't normally have them down as the holding midfield player type," the Three Lions coach explained.

Neville also went on to confirm that manager Roy Hodgson has tremendous amount of faith in Wilshere and is willing to give him a chance to prove himself in that position.

"But when Roy was naming his team, he said, 'Look we've got a massively talented player here. We've got somebody who can get on the ball, who loves being on the ball and plays at a club, who play probably year in, year out the best football in the league, so why don't we give him his head and trust him that he can have the intelligence to play in that role?'

"And I think it's something he can build on now. I'm not saying he's going to play there every single time or that's his new position, because that's too sweeping a statement. But what it did show was an incredible amount of trust in him from the manager and what we think of him," Neville concluded.