Luton boss felt referee was wrong to disallow Andersen's goal

Luton boss Jack Wilshere felt his side had a goal wrongly disallowed by referee Scott Oldham during this afternoon’s 2-2 draw with Lincoln City.

With 72 minutes on the clock and the scores level at 2-2 following four goals in the first period, the Hatters were in the middle of their best spell after the break, Nahki Wells heading over, while Joe Johnson saw an effort deflect wide, and then Cohen Bramall’s free kick cannoned against the wall and went behind. Visiting keeper George Wickens flapped the first delivery from Johnson over his own bar despite not being under any real threat, which saw Town’s academy graduate get another opportunity to send the ball into the box.

When he did, Wickens then opted to throw himself theatrically on to the floor despite no Hatters players seemingly around him, Mads Andersen heading into the net, the centre half wheeling away as he, his team-mates and a large amount of home fans believed it was now 3-2 to the hosts. However, the man in the middle, who had a strange day in terms of his decision-making, allowing the visitors to get away with a number of time-wasting incidents, fell for the dramatics, whistling for a free kick that saw the scores remain level.

Asked for his reaction to it, Wilshere said: “It's not a foul, it's definitely not a foul and I need to speak to the ref to get his opinion on it because you see they’ve done it to us, how much in set-pieces now, teams are trying to create chaos. They're trying to get around the goalie and I think if you make that decision, you have to be really, really clear and consistent with both teams, and I'm not sure it was a foul.”

Despite looking the better side in the early stages, Luton found themselves 2-0 down with 22 minutes on the clock, the visitors taking advantage of some terrible defending by the hosts from crosses into the box to find the net through Freddie Draper and Rob Street. Gideon Kodua pulled one back with his 10th of the season on 35 minutes, with Wells firing home a terrific 25-yard strike to make it 2-2 in first half stoppage time.

Although Andersen’s disallowed goal meant the sides couldn’t be separated in the second period, thanks to Josh Keeley tipping over a late header, then discussing his side’s efforts, Wilshere added: “I said to the players, if we play like that more often than not we’ll win games. However, this league, you’ve heard me say it so many times, it’s about moments. They have two moments and that's it. We allowed them to score two goals, okay they had the moment at the end where Josh (Keeley) made a top save and you need your goalie in those moments, but in terms of how we played, the intent we played with, the aggression we played with, I’m really proud of the players.”