Whatever happened to likely lads Joe Hart and Jack Wilshere?

They are images that once seemed so illustrative of two brash young footballers on top of the world, but now look oddly poignant and only emphasise the low they’re both at right now. Back in 2014, just weeks after another failed international tournament for England, Joe Hart and Jack Wilshere were photographed together on holiday in Las Vegas.

If it feels harsh to link a holiday the players are obviously entitled to with their downward moves in the last week, it’s just so pointed they now find themselves pictured together in a very different way. They are no longer riding high, but have instead had to face the kind of tough transfer decision that is rather rare for England stars who have not yet even left their primes.

It is undeniably stark.

Once seen as two of the brighter players in their country’s future, they’re both going to have to now re-assess their presents to ensure their own futures. The worst part of all this is that both Hart and Wilshere justifiably saw themselves as modern totems of their teams, as English players who their clubs are most identified with.

They have now found those clubs can rather easily do without them.

The circumstances that have led to this are very different too, though. For Wilshere, it has been gradual and somewhat unfortunate, due to a series of long-term injuries. For Hart, it has been abrupt and ruthless, raising all kind of questions over what it really is that Pep Guardiola didn’t fancy about him.

Manchester City sources say the Catalan did put forward Manuel Neuer, Claudio Bravo and another German-based goalkeeper as targets for this summer when he agreed to the job at the start of the year, so there had been a long-term plan there and some purely football decisions. At the same time, the fact the eventual move for Bravo came so late in the window suggests there may have been some change to that plan, and potentially a re-assessment.

Was Guardiola willing to make do with Hart for the moment, only to then reconsider? Did the manager suddenly feel it would be better to remove a particularly dominant figure from the squad right away, in order to fully signal the start of a new era, just like he did with club legends like Ronaldinho and eventually Samuel Eto’o at Barcelona?

Again, it really is difficult not to explicitly link this to Hart’s notoriously abrasive on-pitch personality, and how often he has worked himself into a conspicuously hyperactive frenzy for a goalkeeper only to be undone by near-comical errors. It happened twice at Euro 2016 alone, and Guardiola might possibly have thought he could have done with a more serenely concentrated figure.

Hart has so often seemed a little too ostentatiously confident in his own ability, when a touch more consideration would do.

With Wilshere, it has almost been the opposite of late. At Euro 2016, he didn’t really seem sure of himself at all, and it has been increasingly like that at Arsenal. He has only ever been dabbing at games from midfield, rather than driving them in the way he was supposed to be by this age. This was a player who had lost his thrust.

That is, really, just sad. A midfielder seen as a revelation at the age of 18 never revved up further, instead always stalled by injury.

The bottom line is that Bournemouth is not where he should be at this point of his career, a club who were in the process of getting promoted from League Two when Wilshere went on his first loan move to Bolton Wanderers back in 2009-10 to launch his career.

That in itself, however, perhaps reflects a new maturity. Wilshere didn’t proudly insist on staying at Arsenal when it was becoming clear something needed to change, nor did he demand a certain type of move to soothe his ego.

He instead seems to have made a pure football decision. He picked the club that would be best for his game, and to get him back playing the best football possible.

You could almost say similar for Hart. Few who know him expected the goalkeeper to make a move like he did to Torino. Even if he tried to inevitably spin it by somewhat ludicrously talking about “destiny”, going to Torino is a show of humility many might have thought beyond him.

It perhaps indicates that, although these moves aren’t necessarily good for where their careers are at right now, they might be best for both players’ futures.

The picture still has time to change again.