No blame for Yates but Wilshere knows Hatters need to score from a corner

Town chief Jack Wilshere felt striker Jerry Yates wasn’t to blame for his miss from a yard out during Luton’s 1-1 draw against Bolton Wanderers on Saturday, although he feels his side do have to score from one of their numerous set-piece opportunities in the very near future.

With Town forcing 13 corners in the game, the closest they came to finding the net from was during the first half when another fine Liam Walsh delivery was almost turned in by Hakeem Odoffin, before bouncing through to Jacob Brown at the back post. The recalled attacker escaped his marker to send over a fierce first-time cross that beat Trotters keeper Teddy Sharman-Lowe as it looked destined to be turned in by Yates, who was standing virtually on the goal-line.

Unfortunately for the 29-year-old, what happened next summed up his luck in front of goal for the Hatters since arriving from Swansea City in the summer, as he couldn’t add to his two league goals thus far, unable to react in time, as the ball hit the top of his knee and ballooned almost vertically skywards, clearing the bar and eventually ending up on the roof of the Oak Road stand.

With Luton also winning 12 corners and not scoring directly from one in the 2-1 victory over Huddersfield Town on Tuesday evening, when this time Yates was on target from the extremely close range, sliding in to turn Lamine Fanne’s shot over the line, then asked about his miss and also his side’s efforts from a dead ball situation, Wilshere said: “Yatesy had a great chance to level the scores himself before half time, but it’s hard, it’s hit the wrong point of the knee and then gone straight up.

“I always keep saying it, we’re getting closer with set-pieces, but we have to execute one at some point. It feels like we’re getting closer and closer, but we’re not there quite to execute. We scored Jake’s (Richards) goal against Huddersfield. You could say that was a second phase of a set-play, but we definitely need one to go in just to try and help us build a little bit more confidence around it.”

Town did find the net late on through Gideon Kodua’s fourth goal of the season, which ensured the spoils were shared, as Wilshere could definitely take some solace in the way his players recovered from having started their three-game week by being on the wrong end of a 5-0 hammering at Barnsley.

He added: “If I isolate the game today, probably a little bit frustrated as I felt like we could have won it especially at the end. In one of those moments we could probably be a little bit calmer, but given the context of the week, obviously we started it badly and then we had to recover, bounce back. We knew we were coming into a tough home game (against Huddersfield), and we had to win, we felt like we had to win, so that took a lot out of some of the players. Then to have the desire and pride to go again was outstanding, so it was a good week.”