No complaints from Wilshere but he admits Stevenage switch is 'annoying'

Luton boss Jack Wilshere wasn’t looking to make any excuses about his side having to go again this evening when heading to Stevenage in League One, although did label the fact their game has been brought forward to a Thursday night as ‘annoying’.

The Hatters will finally end their exhausting fixture schedule of six matches in just 20 days at the SPORTA Arena this evening, as they take on a home side who are also finishing the same sequence of matches. With Sky Sports choosing the contest for live TV coverage, it means that Wilshere’s men, and Alex Revell’s side, will have to dig deep once more, before both having the rare luxury of eight days off, Town next in action at home to Bradford City a week on Saturday.

Asked about the punishing run since the campaign began, Wilshere said: “I’m not going to moan about the schedule, but it’s annoying that this one is on the Thursday. What we went through, it was four games in nine days, which is fine, I understand the level, I understand the league, we prepared for that in pre-season, but an extra few days wouldn’t have hurt.

"However, it is what it is, it’s there, the players are ready for it. We played Saturday, we had Sunday off, we started a little bit later on Monday to try and give the players that little bit more time with their families to recover and see them because they haven’t and that’s really important, I believe in that, to get some energy from them.

"But it’s here, we’re ready for it. The benefit of that is after the game, we don’t play again for nine days, so then it’s about getting the balance right between recovery and players spending time with their families, but also with the eight new signings we’ve got, working with them and getting them to understand us quicker.”

Luton’s last away match saw the Hatters turn in a dreadful performance as they were hammered 5-2 at Mansfield Town last month, conceding five times before the hour mark. Although they bounced back immediately with a 2-0 success over Stockport County, also held 1-1 by Leyton Orient at the weekend, this represents their first away outing since that dark day, as on attempting to put that to bed, Wilshere continued: “We’ve got really good evidence of being terrible away from home last year, maybe that’s a bit hard, I don’t think we were terrible, we actually played well a lot of the time, but we’ve got evidence of what you need to win away and what that takes in this league.

"It’s probably one of the toughest places to go in terms of Stevenage and all the stuff about off the ball, winning the fight, competing, landing on second balls, staying focused when the ball goes back as they’re going to put it back in your box. Game management, being sensible, because any opportunity, if it’s a free kick, just in our half, or in their half even, it’s coming in our box.

"That’s going to happen. There’s no surprise with that. We know that’s coming, so it is a game where we have to show a lot of the things that we learned last year away from home, and put ourselves in a position to go on the run we did and the players know that.”

Town will be roared on by a packed out away end once more this evening, with their full allocation of just under 1,400 quickly sold out as expected. On the support they will receive, Wilshere added: “We need that, we needed to build that connection and I know that games like this definitely help that.

"They know what they want to see on the pitch from the team and yes our last away game wasn’t good enough and they stuck by our side and they clapped us at the end which was probably difficult for them. Then they came and supported and helped us against Stockport and Leyton Orient, so we know what they want to see and I know how important these nights are to build that connection even further, so we want to do that.”