'Gutted' Hatters boss Wilshere felt Luton fans deserved play-offs
Town win at Bolton but results go against them
Luton boss Jack Wilshere was left feeling ‘gutted’ that Town’s fans didn't get the play-off place they deserved despite beating Bolton Wanderers 3-2 on Saturday.
The Hatters had travelled to the Toughsheet Stadium full of hope that it wasn’t going to be the last game of the campaign, as although they sat outside the top six ahead of kick-off, they knew a win against the Trotters, plus defeat for either Stockport County, Bradford City or Stevenage would see them finish above the dotted line.
Although Luton did their bit, triumphing 3-2 thanks to goals from Jordan Clark, Hakeem Odoffin and Shayden Morris, with the deciding strike coming in stoppage time in front of the 3,000 or so travelling fans. Unfortunately for Morris and the Hatters, with Stockport and Bradford both in front, then a late goal for Stevenage against Wigan Athletic meant Town’s winner counted for nothing as they eventually ended up finishing in seventh place.
Following the final whistle, Wilshere and his players stood in front of the away end for a good 10 minutes, as having restored some faith and belief in their followers by going on a run of just one defeat in 17, winning nine of their last 11 matches, they were awarded a fine ovation in return. It was a world apart from some of the receptions they had to go through during the early stages of Wilshere’s tenure when Town went on an 11-game winless run on their travels, jeered off at places like Exeter, Port Vale, Wigan and Doncaster having failed to register three points, also incurring the Kenilworth Road faithful’s wrath following games against Burton Albion and Reading.
Having seen Town’s hopes of playing for a place in the Championship dashed, the ex-Arsenal and England star, who took over from Matt Bloomfield in October, said: “I’m gutted for the fans as they’ve stuck with us through the whole time I’ve been here. It’s not always been easy and I know we’ve had some tough moments at home, but they’ve always travelled away, they’ve always stuck with us. When I say I’m proud of the players and they have to go through tough times and show resilience, that’s everyone. When I talk about the whole club, the fans are included in that, so I’m gutted for them as I think their support deserved for us to be at least in the play-offs, but we fell short."
After addressing his players both on the pitch and in the changing room before coming to face the press, asked just what message he had delivered to them, Wilshere added: “I said be proud of what you’ve done, what you’ve achieved over the last couple of months. We fell short and my job now is to make sure we don’t do that next season. We’ll improve certain things, but this group of players have given us hope, have given us the opportunity to reach our ambition and we never wanted to be in the situation where that was gone.
"There were probably times this season when people said, we probably won’t be in the play-offs and the players have turned that around. They should be really proud of what they’ve done, to come here and win when we knew we needed to do that, and look after what we had to look after and hope something would happen somewhere else. So I said to them they should be proud and keep their heads up.”