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Wilshere - We showed we have flair

Jack Wilshere believes England showed more attacking verve at this year's World Cup - and were unlucky to go home early.

The Arsenal midfielder was part of the Three Lions squad in Brazil but Roy Hodgson's team was knocked out at the group stage following narrow defeats to Italy and Uruguay.

England return to action on Wednesday with a friendly against Norway before travelling to Switzerland to begin their European Championship qualifying campaign, and Wilshere believes a bright future lies ahead for the national team.

"In the future I'll look back on it and it will be a good memory for me."

"In past tournaments we've been accused of lacking technical ability or not being able to pass the ball around and this time we tried," Wilshere told Arsenal Player.

"Our main threat was going forward which in the past had not been heard of. We've been good defensively but we tried to do our stuff.

"We had Sterling, Sturridge and [other] flair players, who were doing their stuff that they were doing week in, week out and they tried to take that on to the international stage.

"If you look back at the games, we were unlucky. We had four or five chances that on another day would go in and we would have gone through to the last 16 but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. But we'll take some positives."

Despite a difficult few weeks in Brazil, Wilshere feels the experience being involved in his first major tournament with England will only benefit his long-term international career.

"I didn't play as much as I wanted to play but I was coming back from six or seven weeks out so it was tough," he said. "The [other] players have been playing for the last six weeks of the season, which I missed.

"I got injured so it was always tough to come back but I was happy to be a part of it and get some playing time. In the future I'll look back on it and it will be a good memory for me."