Luton boss impressed by Town's greater 'purpose' during Huddersfield triumph

Luton boss Jack Wilshere was impressed by the ‘purpose’ his side played with against Huddersfield Town during their 2-1 victory at Kenilworth Road last night.

The Hatters had gone into the contest on the back of an embarrassing 5-0 battering at Barnsley on Saturday, as while despite doing well on the road prior to that awful showing, at home, in the league anyway, it had been a tough watch, beaten 2-0 by Mansfield during Wilshere’s first game in charge and then held to a goalless draw by Rotherham United in their last outing in front of their own fans.

During the confest with the Millers, Luton persisted with a possession based approach, trying to draw their opponents out, a tactic that never worked as Town’s visitors had no trouble at all in leaving Bedfordshire with their point intact. In that game, goalkeeper Josh Keeley and the back three of Teden Mengi, Mads Andersen and Kal Naismith had a massive 382 touches of the ball between them, with the back three finishing with 277 passes as well, usually just transferring it between each other or back to Keeley in what was an increasingly laboured build-up.

However, against the Terriers, Luton adopted a far more direct approach throughout the 90 minutes, as with Nigel Lonwijk replacing Andersen, the quartet had just 189 touches, less than half on this occasion, as they only completed 99 passes as well. Although they had a mere 47.8 percent possession, down from their 69.1 percent against Rotherham, the Hatters possessed far more of a goal threat, with 13 shots, five on target and 24 touches inside the Terriers area, whereas in their last match they managed just 12 shots, three on target and 20 touches inside the box.

On the change in approach, Wilshere said: “That’s the key word, purpose. We spoke yesterday and we trained it, we trained playing forward and I said before, there’s so many amazing things that happen in football, they try to build in the right way and I loved how brave the players have been with trying to do that, but also let’s not forget that the purpose is to score goals, is to attack is to put the opposition under pressure. I think the more pressure you can put them under, the more opportunities you're going to have and we did that really well tonight.

“I think the energy and the purpose we played with was good. We spoke before the game about attacking the box, keeping the pressure on them, keeping the attacks in their half, playing a little bit more direct at times, as we can do it and we’re good at it. We’re also good at making passes and playing through teams at times, but I think when you play against especially the better teams in the league, you have to be able to mix it up. You have to have variation in how you play and I was happy with that.”

With Town now having broken their duck under Wilshere on home soil, and also gained their first league win of his reign in Bedfordshire, it was something he was pleased to tick off, especially following on from such a result at the weekend, continuing: “It was nice and the most important thing was that we responded. Of course it’s nice for me that we get a home win, get a couple of goals, play well I think and we can build on that, but tonight was about the response.

"I know that they have it in them as I said to them before the game, over the last few days I was really happy as everyone I spoke to, whether it be a staff member or a player, whether it be someone in the training ground, not one person questioned the character of the players and that for me is important as those are the people that know them the most. I know externally people will question it when we lose 5-0, but we’ve got a belief and a unity in the group that is impressive and we’re going to need that. This league, you need all of that and we’ll need it again this season.”

The fact that Town were also able to win having been breached, the first time they have done that this term too was another thing that pleased Wilshere, who was happy to see the spirit come through having been pegged back by Leo Castledine’s superb free kick after such a dominant opening 45 minutes in which Jake Richards put them ahead. He said: “The players, they have to find it in them. I always say to them, they’re on the pitch, we try to give them solutions and ideas to try and win the game, but they’re the ones who have to execute it, they’re the ones who feel it.

“They feel the momentum in the game and at that point the momentum had swung the other way. They scored a great goal, a top free kick, they were building a little bit of pressure and we had to find something else, find some character. I think Lamine (Fanne) was a big part of that, he drove the team forward with that but it was down to the players’ character. I’ve said it so many times that we’re going to have to suffer and we obviously didn’t suffer very well at the weekend, but we definitely suffered well today.

"I think back to the Stockport game, think back to the Northampton game, similar to that where it’s not always straightforward and in this league you’re going to get that. Huddersfield are a top team in this league and they’re going to have moments, they’re going to have players who are going to hurt you. We’re going to have to defend, defend our box, head it and kick and we did that well enough tonight.”

With Jerry Yates sliding into to put the hosts back in front, the final thing that pleased Wilshere was the way Town navigated the eight minutes of extra time the officials managed to find, especially the closing 60 seconds when they worked the ball up their right, winning three successive throw-ins to ensure Huddersfield couldn’t get any possession to try and mount a comeback.

He added: “I thought that was outstanding. We spoke about that a little bit, managing games when we’re winning, after the Stockport game actually and what it looks like. But again the players are the ones on the pitch and they have to feel it. I can tell them, take the ball to the corner, but it might not feel like the right moment, or delay some moments and they worked the line with the throw-in really well. Sometimes you have to do that. We go again in three, four days, so sometimes killing the game, wasting moments is important and I think we can get better at that as well.”