Nelson praised by Hatters boss for his response to half-time Barnsley withdrawal

Town chief Jack Wilshere praised midfielder Zack Nelson for taking on board just what had been asked of him following the 5-0 defeat at Barnsley recently, a game in which he was taken off at half time.

After a spell out of the team when Wilshere was appointed, making just two substitute outings in the league, also left out of the squad for the 3-0 win at Stockport County, the academy graduate was back in the match-day 18 for the goalless draw with Rotherham United at Kenilworth Road and then made his first start in the third tier under the new manager at Oakwell the following week.

With Town making an okay beginning to proceedings, it was the 20-year-old who then unfortunately gave the ball away in midfield for the visitors, with the Tykes quickly springing forward to open the scoring on just seven minutes. Two more goals followed for the hosts before the break as Nelson then didn’t appear for the second period, one of three players replaced, Luton shipping two more after the interval to suffer what was a pretty woeful reverse in South Yorkshire.

The midfielder was then dropped to the bench for the 2-1 home victory over Huddersfield Town in the next match, as he was also an unused substitute for the 1-1 draw against Bolton Wanderers at the weekend. Nelson did get another opportunity for the Hatters in the Vertu Trophy second round tie against Exeter City in midweek though, one of 11 changes made by the Luton chief for the game against their League One rivals, as he was on target in the second period, clinically scoring his second goal of the season.

Asked about the midfielder’s efforts on the night, Wilshere said: “I thought Zack was really good. We gave Zack a little bit more freedom to either stay and give us that threat behind, which he’s really good at athletically, or recognise the timing to come down and join in. I think he was really good at that, he got his timing right.

"It’s quite interesting him being under the ball and making passes as it looked like he was in control. Zack is someone who came off at half time against Barnsley, probably disappointed and he hasn’t really had an opportunity to get back on the pitch since then. Zack is someone who we really like, it was difficult for him at Barnsley, but we sat down with him, showed him some stuff, and just said keep going, wait for your next opportunity. He got that and took it.”

Nelson’s goal was the second time that Town scored on the night from a successful high press as after Lasse Nordas took advantage of a poor pass in defence to set up Shayden Morris for the second, Nelson then hunted down an opportunity in the final third midway through the second period, with Grecians keeper Jack Bycroft misplacing his ball out from the back straight to the midfielder.

He showed a good first touch to steady himself, and then confidently sidefooted his effort into the corner of the net, as on Town showing a desire to close down their opponents in the final third, Wilshere continued: “A lot of those opportunities come from the press. People say how are you going to play in possession? Are you going to play short? Are you going to play long? How are you going to create opportunities? Well we did create opportunities through good play, but a lot of the time it’s through a high press and winning the ball back high and the opposition are then open.

“My message after the Bolton game when we reviewed it, was keep creating those opportunities, either through pressing, either through good play, either through crossing, either through arriving in dangerous areas. As you look at the Barnsley game and all right there’s only one stat that matters, but we arrived in the final third 84 times to their 50. They scored five, we scored none, so we have to keep arriving but there comes a point where we have to go, ‘come on guys, we need more, we need to put the ball away.’ We need to make sure that we take our moments otherwise teams will always come back, and we definitely did that.”

On how Town’s players will now benefit from seeing Wilshere’s method of attacking actually pay off on the pitch, with the Hatters trying to find a way of scoring more goals in the league, particularly at home, the boss added: “To explain that to players, sometimes they probably don’t believe you that their best opportunity to create a high value opportunity is in a high press when they’re open and if you get that bit right, but they’ve experienced it now and they’ve seen the success from it. I think that’s how you convince the players, that’s how you get them to buy into it, and we need to keep building on that.

"They can deliver and there’s some things that you can do in training, but you can’t replicate everything. You can’t replicate the game feeling, the intensity that you need, the intensity of the opposition and they delivered on it. A few of the players played against Brighton and they were really good, a different type of test, it was more of a tactical game. This was against a League One opposition who were aggressive and we killed their spirit from the start and that was down to the players.”