No need to panic despite Town's failure to take their chances against Orient
Wilshere unworried by scoring once in 23 shots against the O’s
Luton boss Jack Wilshere insists there is no need to panic despite his side’s frustrations in front of goal during Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Leyton Orient.
The Hatters looked clear favourites to back up Wednesday night’s 2-0 victory over Stockport County with yet another home triumph after an opening 30 minutes in which Jamie Donley scored his first goal for the club, also putting another volley wide, while Nahki Wells was freed three times, only to fire at visiting keeper Nathan Baxter twice and see another attempt blocked away.
Orient took advantage of Town’s wastefulness, levelling on 36 minutes through a fine effort of their own from Jaze Kabia, but still Luton kept attacking, Gideon Kodua shooting at Baxter again from outside the box, before Hakeem Odoffin hit the post from a corner and Kodua’s close range follow-up was somehow kept out by a last-ditch goal-line block.
It appeared the dominance might continue in the early stages of the second period, Wells sent away again, only to once more put his attempt too close to Baxter, but it began to tail off as the match progressed, the hosts ending up with 23 shots, seven on target, but saw their record of scoring twice or more in a game for the last 11 league matches come to an end.
Having managed to net 26 goals in that time, with only 14 coming in the 11 matches beforehand, Wilshere wasn’t overly worried by their attacking output, saying: “That’s not one to panic on because of how clinical and how many goals we’ve scored. It probably felt like one of the games where we’ve created the most chances so far this season, so in terms of performance and process-wise, very good, but in recent games we’ve been clinical. I wouldn’t panic on that because we’ve got two number nines who have scored goals this season, we’ve got goals from elsewhere, Kasey Palmer has got a couple, so I think we’ll be okay with that.”
Finding the net with more regularity than they had been, Luton only the joint eighth top scorers in the division last term, with 68 goals, while they are now joint third with 11 already, was something that Wilshere placed particular importance on during the summer, both at the Brache, and also with their transfer strategy. They brought in Northern Ireland international Callum Marshall from West Ham, who is up and running with two to his name so far, allowed Lasse Nordas and Jerry Yates to leave, with Devante Cole reduced to a bit-part role too.
Prior to the weekend, the remaining Wells had certainly reaped the rewards from Town’s coaching methods too, up to five for the campaign on Wednesday night, a tally that took him until February to achieve last term, as Wilshere continued: “We’ve been putting our chances away this season. It was a focus in pre-season from a coaching point of view, what type of sessions we put on, but also from a recruitment point of view.
"We brought in Marshy, and sometimes when you do that, bring in another number nine, it makes the current number nine step up and Nahki’s definitely done that. They both scored the other night, I’m really happy with that. I just think when you reflect on the game, there’ll be opportunities that we should have probably taken and on another day we do.”
Wilshere was also pleased with just what Luton’s main two forwards can offer him in an attacking sense as well, adding: “An important part of that is they’re different strikers. We need that, every team needs that. They need different solutions depending on the opposition they’re facing and a different type of nine. Nahki’s really good at some stuff, Callum is really good at some stuff, and they’ve also both got stuff they can improve on, so that’s really important.
"The second thing is really important is their attitude towards that. They’re both hungry to play, they both push each other, there’s a lot of respect there and the third thing at the moment, they’re both scoring, which every team needs a number nine who scores goals. At the minute, we’ve got two and that gives confidence to the team, gives confidence to them certainly. So we’re all happy with those two and they need to keep going that way.”