Hatters boss left stumped by Luton's wretched defending during Royals loss

An utterly bemused and clearly hurting Hatters boss Jack Wilshere was at a loss to explain his side’s hat-trick of defensive errors that led to their 3-2 defeat against Reading on Saturday.

The hosts, who hadn’t kept a clean sheet in league or cup for the last seven games, failed to do so once more, undone inside five minutes with a goal of their own making, a long ball forward seeing Izzy Jones makes a hash of his attempted back header, sending it across his own goal, as skipper Kal Naismith was unable to deal with the mistake, allowing Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan to easily beat Josh Keeley.

To their credit, Luton responded strongly to the setback, as with Kenilworth Road in fine mood due to reaching a Wembley final again on Wednesday night, produced a fine display for the rest of the first half. They eventually went into the break on level terms too, Nigel Lonwijk sliding home Emilio Lawrence’s excellent cross in first half stoppage time. A strong start to the second period looked like it had put the Hatters well on course for three points too, the recalled George Saville rising highest to head in Jordan Clark's corner, only for the hosts to then implode in the final 10 minutes.

First, Keeley unwisely put Joe Johnson under pressure with a lofted ball out to the youngster whose attempted pass was cut out, which allowed former Newcastle United winger Matt Ritchie to unleash a superb cross for Ehibhatiomhan to beat Izzy Jones at the back post, a mirror image of so, so many goals conceded by Luton in the past.

Then moments later, after Keeley was awarded a free kick, he opted to go short to Johnson, who found Naismith in his own area, the already under-fire skipper taking a heavy first touch to lose the ball to Ritchie, which saw Ehibhatiomhan free to smash home and complete his treble, enraging those in what was now a stunned crowd, who had been in fairly buoyant mood beforehand, now totally disbelieving of the collapse they had just witnessed.

Asked about the goals, and why Town put themselves into such trouble at the back, Wilshere said: “I don’t know what happened, I don’t know the conversations that were happening in that moment, but we have to put the ball down and just get up the pitch. We have two moments to do it, I thought for the second goal we could have just hooked it back in. Okay, we don’t quite do it and we go back, then it has to go long. It doesn’t, then it goes to JJ who’s got time on the ball, we try and play inside and you’re asking for trouble against a team that’s coming out.

"They’re pressing you, they’ve bought fresh players on the pitch and we have to understand that, we have to manage that moment so much better. We then don’t need to make that pass (for the third goal), it goes to JJ and it’s then a moment to go long or go outside to Cohen (Bramall). It goes back, we take a bad touch and the whole situation it just needs to be solved right at the beginning where we put the ball down, we take a breath and then we get up the pitch together.”

Having done so well to get themselves in front, then midway through the second period, Luton brought on Nahki Wells and Liam Walsh for Devante Cole and Jake Richards, as despite the pair both going close to a third goal, Wells’s deflected shot striking the bar, the Hatters began to give their opponents a real sniff, departing from their front-footed football and beginning to pass it around inside their own half, inviting their visitors on to them, as a nervousness started to envelop those in the stadium.

They also began to take far too long over their goal kicks, something that hadn’t been happening during the first period, which enraged the home fans as much as the away end, Naismith and Keeley needlessly holding on to the ball, both fortunate to escape a booking from another woeful referee in Oliver Mackey.

Having stated previously that he wants his side to be the kind of team who try and drive their superiority home, as they aren’t good enough at attempting to see a game out, asked just why the Hatters began to play so passively with victory in their grasp, Wilshere added: “It’s really frustrating as we keep highlighting that and keep showing and keep talking about it, and I don’t know the answer to why we stopped doing it.

"Of course teams will start to put a little bit more pressure on and start to play a little bit more, but sometimes that opens up a little bit more space for you to either sit in and wait a little bit or put the ball further into their half and then start playing from there, but we can’t do that at the moment. That’s why it hurts, because we had a really positive week before today.

"We had some good conversations with the fans, we showed a really good performance on Wednesday in an important match and that’s probably then why we get the performance we did for 80 minutes, but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter. We can’t keep sitting here saying about that was good, this was good, that was good as ultimately it doesn’t matter and then when you give the game away it hurts even more.”