Jones and Richards return as Town make two changes against County

Luton boss Jack Wilshere has made two changes to his side for this afternoon’s League One clash against fellow play-off chasers Stockport County.

Izzy Jones and Jake Richards have both come into the side for Gideon Kodua, who has dropped to the bench, and Liam Walsh, the midfielder missing out completely, as is striker Elijah Adebayo, with Ali Al-Hamadi amongst the substitutes before he heads away on international duty with Iraq next week.

Although the visitors have lost their last four league encounters on the road, they are still well placed to earn a play-off berth this term, sitting in fifth, five points ahead of Luton, who they also have two games in hand on. Discussing the opposition, who finished third last year, losing toi Leyton Orient on penalties in the play-offs, Wilshere said: “They’re a really good team, really good experience, really good manager (Dave Challinor) who’s been at this level and competed really well over the last few years at this level, so he knows what it takes to get it done, to get into the play-offs.

"They’ll be looking to go one step further this year, and they are in the play-offs now, so they’ll be looking to stay there and then be successful that way. We look forward to the challenge, we had a really good result away from home there (3-0 victory), we’ll approach the game in a way where we’ll try and win, we’re at home, we’re happy with our home record apart from the Reading game of course.

"We’ve created something at home which I don’t think teams like to come to too much as I think we can start on the front foot, get the fans behind us as I think the fans have been really, really good at home recently and they’ve helped us a lot. So Stockport, a good team, experience at this level, a dangerous team that like to attack, like to keep the good ball, with good players, key players for them, but a challenge we look forward to.”

After going six league games without a win, just when it looked like they were capable of breaking into the top six, Luton have reignited those hopes by taking seven points out of nine, including back-to-back victories against Wycombe and Exeter in the last week. On coming good when they really need to, Wilshere continued: “We started to build some momentum leading into Reading, all right maybe not with the results we wanted, but we picked up a point away from home, picked up a few points here and there, but we were focusing more on us, and trying to come out of this run.

"I thought we were doing it and then we got a punch in the stomach from Reading in the last few minutes and that knocked us in the Doncaster game. We couldn’t then quite find our rhythm in that game, which was disappointing, but we managed to hold on for a point. It was a point gained in my opinion, not what we wanted, but a point gained and then we know we had these two games coming up where they were important games.

“So credit to the players because it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster, but we seem to be getting a little bit more momentum, a little bit more belief. Winning games is massive for that and we know the importance of that, so credit to the players because they had to dig in (against Exeter) after giving a lot on Saturday and the most important thing is the three points.”

Despite conceding early in the second period against the Grecians, the Hatters didn’t let it affect them as it has done in the past, as they produced some of their best football with the result in the balance, as Wilshere added: “The key to that has been training it. We talk about structure a lot, we talk about not turning down shots, not turning down the opportunity to put the ball in the box, making the opposition centre backs defend, but the most important thing for me is the structure, is giving players the solutions.

"So if we can run into that area, or we can attack that area in the box, then players have to execute it and you have to go through a process of training it and probably over the last couple of months we’re really developed that. We’ve grown as a team, also when you’re in the final third and you’re in a good structure, you attack the box and you’ve got a good structure under the ball, you’re then able to sustain attacks.

"Sometimes that’s the best opportunity, when you put the ball in the box, it comes out and then the back four or back five in this league are trying to get up to the ball and they leave it a little bit of space. We want to be a a team that attack a lot and to do that you have to structure under the ball to sustain attacks.”

Hatters: Josh Keeley, Nigel Lonwijk, Hakeem Odoffin, Kal Naismith (C), Izzy Jones, George Saville, Kasey Palmer Jordan Clark, Emilio Lawrence, Jake Richards, Devante Cole. Subs: James Shea, Sverre Sandal, Davy van den Berg, Ali Al-Hamadi, Shayden Morris, Gideon Kodua, Joe Johnson.

County: Corey Addai, Josh Dacres-Cogley, Jack Diamond, Tanto Olaofe, Tayo Edun, Ethan Pye, Kyle Wootton, Ben Osborn, Ollie Norwood (C), Odin Bailey, Brad Hills. Subs: Ben Hinchcliffe, Owen Dodgson, Lewis Bate, Joseph Olowu, Malik Mothersille, Josh Stokes, Adama Sidibeh. Referee: Robert Madley.