Hatters boss remains confident the goals will come for misfiring Luton striker

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere is remaining confident that the goals will come for striker Jerry Yates despite his injury time miss against Stevenage on Saturday.

Having been brought on for hard-working team-mate Nahki Wells with 13 minutes of normal time remaining at Kenilworth Road and his side 2-1 to the good thanks to strikes by Jordan Clark and Gideon Kodua, Yates’s arrival was met with a smattering of jeers from a small minority of home supporters that feel the summer signing from Swansea City, who struggled with just 16 touches of the ball in the 1-0 loss at Exeter on New Year’s Day, hasn’t hit the heights expected of him.

They soon changed to cheers though and chants of ‘Jerry, Jerry’ when the forward immediately put in an impressive recovery run to not only track a visiting player back to his own by-line, but also win a pressure-relieving goal kick for his side. His work-rate continued to help Luton manage the game impressively from then on, however, late on, the forward had a glorious opportunity to put the result to bed once and for all when going clean through on keeper Filip Marschall.

As the ball dropped invitingly and away from any covering defenders, the striker could have done a number of things, rounding the on-loan Aston Villa youngster, who had already committed himself, or dinking over him the two best options, but unfortunately Yates could only end up firing against the legs of the stopper and frustratingly saw the ball rebound away to safety.

It means that although Yates has six goals in 26 outings this term, the third highest tally out of anyone in a Luton shirt, he has only bagged twice in the league from 20 appearances, with just one of those from open play, that when sliding home from virtually on the line against Huddersfield Town on November 25, almost two months ago now.

Although he quickly notched another in the 2-2 draw with Fleetwood during Town’s FA Cup second round exit following that game, the ex-Blackpool and Derby County attacker’s miss at the weekend means he is now on a run of six outings without scoring again. Yates still has the backing of Wilshere though, as speaking on Saturday about his failure to find the net, the boss said: “Jerry will be annoyed about that, but I think you can see his hunger when he comes on and he’s like that every day in training.

"He scored a really nice goal yesterday in training, I know he would swap that for one today, but it will come for Jerry because of the way he works and his energy. He’s the type of striker where you can see how he got that chance when again they played long, they’re in a closed structure, we can win it, we can compete and knock it over their back line and he’s ready, he’s on the shoulder and he’ll be disappointed, but it will come for him.”

Thankfully for Yates his miss didn’t harm Luton’s chances of making it three straight wins at home for the first time since the 2022-23 campaign, as the hosts were able to defend their goal with a real sense of authority in the closing stages ensuring they leapfrogged their opponents to climb up to seventh in the table.

Wilshere added: “You’re always a little bit nervy when you face a team that when it goes out and they’re 30 yards from our goal-line, they’re going to throw it into your box and you can see what’s going to happen. We did manage those moments well and I thought Walshy (Liam) was important for that. He put his foot on the ball and tried to make us play again, but a professional performance after that and I’m happy with that.”