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12th Feb 2015

Roy Hodgson defends Jack Wilshere by revealing his own shisha smoking session

Wonder if he inhaled?

Tony Cuddihy

Wonder if he inhaled?

Roy Hodgson says he’s not bothered by the fact that Jack Wilshere was recently pictured holding a shisha pipe, and said that he had tried it once.

The England boss says that the shisha left him with nothing more than faint and fruity taste in his mouth, and he was more of a cigar man anyway.

“I thought tobacco was smoking and shisha pipes were water with flavour,” said Hodgson, who was unclear as to whether nicotine was involved.

“Well, you are blowing in and you’re blowing out. 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.

England v Italy: Group D - 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil

“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 twice been photographed smoking cigarettes previously, and has recently been recovering from yet another lengthy injury lay-off. He is expected to return to the Arsenal squad for this weekend’s FA Cup fifth round clash with Middlesbrough.