Clark felt O's display would have 'stressed' Luton boss out more than Barnsley debacle
Town salvaged a point in forgettable clash at Brisbane Road
Long-serving midfielder Jordan Clark felt that Luton’s efforts during Tuesday night’s 1-1 draw against Leyton Orient would have ‘stressed’ Town boss Jack Wilshere out more than the embarrassing 5-0 defeat at Barnsley last month.
The 32-year-old, who didn’t feature at Oakwell last month due to a calf injury, had to watch on from the bench as the visitors delivered an opening 45 minutes that was quite simply woeful, as although they went closest to breaking the deadlock early on, Jacob Brown’s cross just behind Jerry Yates who would have had a tap-in, that was pretty much it in terms of anything resembling a moment of excitement.
Time and time again Luton passed the ball out of play, as did their opponents, who were actually even worse in possession, their final completion rate just underneath 50 percent demonstrating that, as it made for a first half that was not a good advertisement at all for League One football. It didn’t get much better after the break, the O’s taking advantage of a mistake by Kal Naismith to open the scoring after five minutes, as Luton weren’t able to start playing until the closing stages, when Clark was on by this time, grabbing a point thanks to Gideon Kodua’s header.
Having been thumped at Oakwell in their last league outing on the road, Clark actually felt the manner of Town’s performance in midweek, which saw the Hatters unable to string more than a couple of passes together, would have bothered Wilshere more than what he witnessed in south Yorkshire a few weeks ago, as he said: “I think it probably stressed him out more than the Barnsley game if I’m honest as it was there for someone to settle the game, the ball was bouncing around and that’s not what we work on.
“As a manager and a coaching staff that will frustrate him as that wasn’t like a Jack Wilshere team, so that’s what they’re probably most disappointed about, but pleased with the reaction at the end. The last 20 minutes, that’s how they want us to play, that’s what we work on in training, so we’ve just got to take that moving forward now and look forward to Saturday.”
Although it was a performance and contest to instantly forget, Clark did point to the spirit shown by his side once more, as they were able to hit back and take something from the game despite conceding first, something they have started to add to their tool box now, managing a similar feat against Bolton Wanderers recently, also going on to win when being pegged back by Huddersfield Town too.
It was a positive to cling on to, as he continued: We have a couple of good results, we get excited and then we get a smack in the face with the Barnsley result and then four points from the Huddersfield and the Bolton game which is not bad in this league as they’re two good sides. We’ve come away from home and it’s not a good performance, but fighting until the end which is what this club is about and it’s always been about it since I’ve been here.
"We’ve just got to keep that going, keep improving as there’s still a lot of football to be played. We’re not far away, but sometimes you feel a million miles away as well. You’ve just got to get that consistency, if you can nick points away from home and then you can win your home games we’ll not be in a bad place.”
Clark now knows that Town have to demonstrate that desire to fight tooth and nail to get something from the game from the opening whistle if they are to achieve their goal of challenging for promotion this term, adding: “Sometimes when you’re losing a game, it’s easy as you’ve got nothing to lose. The mentality, which like we said in there, we’ve got to have that from minute one. We need that fight and nothing to lose.
"We’ve got a lot of good players in there and we can all do more, myself included. We got in some good areas and the final ball was off, hopefully just a little bit of rust from the five, six weeks of being out, but we’ve just got to try and take as many positives as we can. It wasn’t a great game, wasn’t a great performance and at home on Saturday (against Port Vale) we need to give the fans something to get behind and cheer about.”