Lawrence is straight in as Luton chief simply targets 'improvement'

Luton chief Jack Wilshere has declared the only thing he is interested in this season is ‘improvement’ from his Hatters side, as he handed attacker Emilio Lawrence an immediate start at Reading this afternoon following his return to the club yesterday.

The Town boss is beginning his first full campaign in charge having taken over last term when Matt Bloomfield was sacked in October, and the Kenilworth Road club very much in a downward spiral. Having steadied the ship and then gone through some ups and downs of his own, Wilshere finished magnificently, masterminding nine wins from Town’s final 11 matches, including a Vertu Trophy final triumph at Wembley, although it wasn’t quite enough to finish in the play-off positions.

Ending up outside the dotted line was something that Luton’s hierarchy certainly wouldn’t have accepted 12 months ago, chief executive Gary Sweet stating publicly that play-offs were an ‘absolute minimum’, and on whether he saw promotion as the only acceptable outcome this term, Wilshere said: “We finished on 74 points last year, I would take, and I’m not even going to put a number on it as you’ll hold me to it, everyone will, but improvement on that.

"We were one point out last year, which hurt, it hurt me for a good couple of weeks after the off season, as I felt we should have been in there. I felt if we had have been in there, we would have got out of that, so we have to improve on that. We’ve set a target as players and that’s not a target of we need to do this, we need to win that, it's a target where we improve this, we get this amount of points, we improve this, we add these points, we improve this, we add these points.

"We’ve got a target in our head and that’s just improving on last year. If we improve, then naturally we'll be closer, but because I talk to the players all the time about process, it would be wrong of me to sit there and put a real target on it. It’s just improvement, that’s it.”

With Town making going into the game at the Madejski Stadium with two changes from the side that won at Wembley last season, Josh Keeley and Johnston in for James Shea and Mads Andersen, with fellow new additions Harrison Ashby and Callum Marshall on the bench, then having had a summer to reshape things, on whether he now feels it is his own squad, Wilshere added: “Arsene Wenger always used to say this and I had a good relationship with Arsene Wenger, and he always used to say to me, ‘work like you’re going to be there forever.’

"When I came here, I had that in my mind. I also sat in front of a group of players that I felt needed direction, needed an identity, need something to cling on to and we worked really, really hard to try and create that. I feel like we have created that, an identity we have to always, always, always look for ways to improve and evolve how we play, because every team now has the ability to analyse us, to look at us before a game and do everything they can to try and stop that.

"We always have to be ready to try and develop the players into making decision on the pitch, but it feels like we created that last year with a certain group of players and really grateful and thankful to the club for doing everything they can to keep that together while trying to improve and we’re in a good place and we need to now make that count on the pitch.”

Royals: Joel Pereira, Udoka Malife, Jeriel Dorsett, Andy Rinomhota, Jack Marriott, Lewis Wing (C), Daniel Kyerewaa, Paudie O’Connor, Benn Ward, Kyreece Lisbie, Josh Stokes. Subs: Jack Stevens, Liam Fraser, Charlie Savage, Randell Williams, Jacob Brown, Paddy Lane, Ashqar Ahmed.

Hatters: Josh Keeley, Izzy Jones, Kal Naismith (C), Hakeem Odoffin, George Johnston, Liam Walsh, Jordan Clark, Kasey Palmer, Emilio Lawrence, Jake Richards, Nahki Wells. Subs: James Shea, Benny Benagr, Harrison Ashby, Sverre Sandal, Callum Marshall, Gideon Kodua, Mads Andersen. Referee: Leigh Doughty.