That transition began during Wilshere's 17 months out of the team following ankle surgery. Having first been struck down at the end of a season in 2010-11 when the class of Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, Samir Nasri, Gael Clichy and Alex Song came so close to winning something, he has looked on and seen the core of a vastly promising team ripped out. That must surely have been dispiriting?
"Yeah, it was hard to take," he said. "But then you see the players they're bringing in. That makes it a lot easier to know that the club are still wanting to challenge for everything.
"Over the past few years the top players have probably thought they don't see a bright future at Arsenal but I think it's different for them. They were a bit older than me. I'm 20, I've still got a long way to go, touch wood, in my career.
"Players like Robin are older and maybe he thought, 'I haven't got time any more'. Cesc wanted to go home, which was understandable. There were many reasons why the different players left. For me, I'm young. There's the likes of Alex Oxalde-Chamberlain and Kieran Gibbs, who are still really young. In the next three or four years they can become top, top players and we can challenge for everything."
With Fabregas and Van Persie gone, Wilshere is already the indisputable playing face of Arsenal and it seems inevitable that he will eventually become captain.
"I'd like to one day. I've been here since I was nine and I know the traditions. I'm not saying I'm ready now, but one day."
When we met last week at an EA Sports Fifa 13 Ultimate Team event it was the morning after the humiliating night before in Bradford. Wilshere, though, was still measured in his analysis of what went wrong.
"We knew it was going to be tough," he said. "It's difficult for the foreign players, especially in their first season to come here and know what Bradford away is like. Maybe you think Bradford away is going to be easy but, trust me, it's not. It's quicker and maybe even more intense than the Premier League. They get up to you and close you down.
"If I went to Spain and we were playing a League Two side in Spain, maybe you'd think, 'Oh, they're not going to be that good and we'll just win', but no."
Wenger, says Wilshere, was entitled to be furious after the match. "He gets angry if we don't perform and he's entitled to get angry and dig players out if they're not pulling their weight." And so is Wenger still the man to take Arsenal forward?
"Every year we've been in the Champions League and there's no other manager who has done that," Wilshere said. "He's built a legacy at this club, he changed everything. He brought the Total Football to Arsenal.
"For me, there's no question he's the right man. When you have a few bad results I don't think you can start blaming the manager. The players have to look at themselves. The manager puts a team on the pitch and, if the players can't do it, it's not the manager's fault."
So if it is down to the players, do Arsenal have sufficient character and quality to turn things around? "There are leaders in the team and, maybe now, we need to step up and show we really are leaders." In that regard, Wilshere says that the prospective return of "the legend" Thierry Henry would give the whole club a lift.
"We have to know our season's not over. I think we can still realistically win everything we're in. I know we're a long way behind in the Premier League but football changes quickly. We know in the Champions League anything can happen."
And what of 2013? Wilshere's first priority, understandably, is to remain injury free, but his second stated wish is for Arsenal to win a first trophy for eight years. "It's something we have to change, it's there and it just adds to the pressure," he said. "Maybe there's a mental block that we need to get over and, once we get our first one, it will all start to happen. It's too long for a club like Arsenal. We should be winning things. We've got good players. We used to in the past and there's no reason we can't in the future."
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