Hatters boss backs Town skipper to bounce back after being jeered by Luton fans

Hatter boss Jack Wilshere insists that captain Kal Naismith will most definitely bounce back from his tough outing at Leyton Orient last night.

The 33-year-old was one of eight changes made by the manager from Town’s FA Cup exit at League Two Fleetwood Town on Saturday, making his 101st appearance in what is now his third spell for the club. It didn’t pan out the way he wanted it to at all though, as his passing accuracy was way down at 71 percent, with his long-range deliveries drawing some real criticism, with only five from 17 attempts actually finding their target.

When Naismith tried to release his team-mates from deep in the first period, he often saw the ball end up disappointingly going out of play or gobbled up by an opposition player, as even when one was left by Nigel Lonwijk to bounce over the line for a throw-in, it led to the skipper, whose relationship with Town supporters has become somewhat strained in recent weeks, jeered by some sections of the 1,264 travelling supporters who had made the trip to Brisbane Road, despite a number of other players not faring much better themselves.

When one finally did come off, it saw Naismith earn some sarcastic cheers from the away end, as his evening went from bad to worse just five minutes into the second period, when being the last man, he took the wrong decision, trying to hold on to the ball when under pressure, having his pocket picked by Dom Ballard, who then went through to face Josh Keeley and tee up Theo Archibald to his right who was able to tap into the empty net and put the hosts in front.

The former Scottish youth international instantly raised an arm to take ownership of his error, as although he stayed on for another 20 minutes or so, when his number was put on the board by the fourth official, he deliberately walked past the away end, holding his hand up on more than one occasion to apologise for his mistake, the gesture met by applause from the majority of those who had travelled, although not everyone reacted in the same manner, as there were further boos clearly heard.

Asked about the response for his skipper, who he backed publicly last week, stating that he didn’t agree with anyone criticising his efforts on the pitch, Wilshere said: “He’ll be back, Kal. You know how much I think of Kal and how much we need his leadership qualities and his quality on the pitch. It probably wasn’t his best game, he’ll be the first to admit that, but he’ll be back and he’ll stand in front of everyone. Like I’ve told you, if I’m a fan of a club and I see my captain come off and do that, that’s what I want to see, so he’ll be back for sure.”

Asked whether the reaction from supporters was disappointing to hear during the contest, as it clearly wouldn’t have helped Naismith, Wilshere continued: “There’s frustrations and we’re human beings and probably Kal in his head was thinking, for gods sake, he needs to be better than that. It’s one of those things, Kal gave the ball away a few times, but I thought the whole team didn’t find their rhythm and the fans probably felt that we weren’t quite at it and we have to make it into a different game then and be able to do that, which I think we are.

"When we play a little bit more direct, I think we’re quite good at that as well, so we need to get the variation right. We need to understand if they’re being aggressive and jumping that it’s probably not a good time to play. I thought that was the problem in the first half, some players thought it was the right moment to play long, then we started playing short and getting a little bit trapped, putting Kal under pressure. They started to build more momentum, and we need to recognise the right moments to be direct and the right moments to play.

"As at the start of the game, for the first five minutes, we played through their first line really well and then we were attacking with longer balls from a little bit higher up. They then recognised it and changed something and we didn’t recognise that, so loads to look at and loads to learn, but we’re still building. I think we’ve found a little bit of an identity and we know when we’re at it, when we’re playing well, what that looks like and we need to do that, but we just have to be more consistent with it.”

Naismith did manage to make 13 defensive contributions on the night, with 11 passes into the final third, while he did win his duels, six from nine on the ground and four from five aerially. It led team-mate and close friend Jordan Clark, who was back from injury, throwing his support behind the club captain, adding: “He’s a proper leader and he’s one of the best guys I know in football.

"He held his hand up straight away and apologised. He let us down but we got him out of it as you back your family up, back your friends up and that’s what we do. He made a mistake, no problem, we keep going and to get the goal at the end which gets us out of the s word, that’s what we do. We’ve got a lot of good lads in there who back each other up all day long.”