Adebayo on the bench for Luton as Wilshere looks to 'fix' woeful away form

Striker Elijah Adebayo has been named in a Luton match-day squad for the first time in almost a year after being included on the bench for the Hatters’ League One trip to Wycombe Wanderers this afternoon.

The 28-year-old last featured on April 5 when he suffered a serious knee injury against Leeds United which has kept him out ever since. Having stepped up his comeback recently by getting 45 minutes and then an hour against Cambridge and Barnet for the U21s, Adebayo takes his place among the substitutes today. He is joined by Davy van den Berg and Joe Johnson, who have been dropped from the 1-1 draw at Doncaster Rovers in midweek, Izzy Jones missing out completely, Kal Naismith, George Saville and joint top scorer Gideon Kodua all coming in.

With Town now on a run of 10 away games without a victory, on trying to alter that at a venue they have never lost at before in their previous 14 visits, boss Jack Wilshere said: “We want the three points, not necessarily the record. I think the context is a lot different, different players, different team, different place the club’s in, but most important we want to fix our away record and we want to get points on the table to get closer to where we want to be. On Tuesday we didn't get it, so it’s the next challenge, the next game. We have to be ready for that and try to give everything we can to win a game in this league, which away from home, we can’t do right now.”

Changing their woeful form appears an unlikely outcome this afternoon with the hosts having won eight from 10 on home soil, and their last four matches, conceding just once in that time, as they are ninth, just two points from the top six and appear the more likely to extend their season of the two teams. Having beaten the Chairboys 4-0 on Boxing Day, then Wilshere is staying confident though, saying: “That was a game I watched, so I’ve got a reference of watching our previous fixture back and I thought we were excellent, we were really good.

"We were kind of in a good run as well where we were picking up some good results, especially at home and that was the starting point for us to push on from there. They are slightly different with what they do now and we have to be ready for that, defensively and offensively, but we have to take some confidence from that game as well. I've sat there as a player and I know from a player’s mind when you're playing against an opposition you think about the last time you played them.

"So we have to use that little bit of confidence that can give us and understand it’s a different type of game and try to execute the things we’ve spoken about this week. They’ve done really well since we played them, (Michael) Duff came in just before that, so he’s obviously had some time to work with the team, get what he wants to get in place, and credit to him.

"They’ve done really well, for us it’s a challenge to go there. We know the situation, we know what we need to do, we’ve watched them, I've watched them closely over the last few days and we’ve got a plan to go there and try and get three points. They’ve found momentum, they’ve got some rhythm at the right time, they’re a team that have got good players. I thought they recruited well in January as well, the players have come in and settled really quickly and hit the ground running. Fair play to them, this is a tough league to do that in, you have to be consistent, you have to have a little bit of luck at times, credit to them, they’ve done really well.”

Chairboys: Will Norris, Jack Grimmer (C), Daniel Harvie, Aaron Morley, Taylor Allen, Caolan Boyd-Munce, Nathan Lowe, Jamie Mullins, Connor Taylor, Luke Harris, Fred Onyedinma. Subs: Mikki Van Sas, Junior Quitima, Bradley Fink, Luke Leahy, Ewan Henderson, Niall Huggins, Andre Vidigal.

Hatters: Josh Keeley, Hakeem Odoffin, Nigel Lonwijk, Kal Naismith (C), Gideon Kodua, George Saville, Liam Walsh, Kasey Palmer, Emilio Lawrence, Jordan Clark, Nahki Wells. Subs: James Shea, Davy van den Berg, Elijah Adebayo, Devante Cole, Jake Richards, Joe Johnson. Referee: Craig Hicks.