Shea hopes U's defeat is Luton's lowest ebb as he can't believe Town's downward spiral
Town stopper gobsmacked by how bad things have become
A utterly distraught Town goalkeeper James Shea can’t quite believe that things have got as bad as they have for the Hatters as the long-serving stopper hopes that Tuesday night’s embarrassing 3-1 Vertu Trophy group stage defeat at the hands of League Two Cambridge United will be the lowest ebb for a Hatters side he feels are utterly devoid of any confidence at the moment.
The 34-year-old took his place between the posts at the Abbey Stadium for his third outing of the campaign and 113rd in total for a club he joined back in July 2017, arriving when Luton were a fourth tier side themselves, but about to begin their ascent to the Premier League which would happen in double quick time, just six years in fact.
However, having reached the pinnacle of the English footballing echelon, the Hatters are now undoing all of that good work, and pretty rapidly too, as after dropping out of the top flight, which most fans could stomach, then were needlessly relegated out of the Championship as well, as needing a point on the final day of the campaign, they turned in a horror defensive show to be thrashed 5-3 at West Bromwich Albion.
Expected to challenge for promotion in League One, the Hatters started okay in terms of results, before a woeful 3-1 loss at Lincoln City, saw supporters start to turn on boss Matt Bloomfield, who then lost his job following a disastrous 2-0 reverse against Stevenage on Saturday. Any hopes that things would instantly start to improve under interim boss Alex Lawless at the Abbey Stadium evaporated too as although Mads Andersen put the visitors in front, yet another woeful display from the back-line saw them concede three times as their opponents were worthy winners on the night.
Speaking to the press afterwards, a clearly shell-shocked and quite emotional Shea was asked if he could ever had anticipated things would go on such a downward spiral from the highs of being in the top tier of English football, saying: "No, no I can’t, and there’s no sugar coating it, if you’d have said this 16 months ago, I’d have said never in a million years. If we had finished 12th last season it would have been a bad season, but we got relegated and then you think coming into League One, we’re going to be right up there and it’s just not clicked at the minute.
"Confidence is really low, we need to turn it around at some point. We’ve got to fight, we’ve got to try and find something, get that spark back and do little steps. It’s not going to happen overnight, we need to work hard, get a couple of wins on the bounce and build from there. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the boys have got no confidence at the minute. You can see it, it’s hard, it’s like we’re up against 13 men every game at the minute and it’s just not nice at the minute.
"It’s not a great place to be as you can imagine, let’s not sugar coat it. We’re down, we’re struggling at the minute, we need help, whoever comes in hopefully can help us and point us in the right direction. I’ve seen everything if I’m honest, it was all going one way at one point and the last couple of years it’s just dwindled away, it’s not great.
"We’ve got good players, we’re just lacking confidence. Hopefully we can change that at some point, but we’re low. It’s a depressing dressing room as you can imagine, when you don’t think it can get any worse it does. So hopefully the only way is up now, but at the minute it’s pretty low. I hope so (that this is the lowest point), as I don’t know how it gets much lower if I’m honest with you."
Although previous manager Bloomfield had enjoyed great success at Wycombe Wanderers, leading the Chairboys to the League One promotion spots, he never looked like recreating that at Kenilworth Road, leaving with just 12 wins from 33 matches, 14 defeats too. Five of those triumphs came this term, but only one, at Burton Albion, was accompanied by a performance that was anywhere near good enough, as Shea knew that being beaten by Stevenage just can’t happen for a club like the Hatters.
He continued: “No disrespect but you can’t be losing to Stevenage. We’ve got to be turning up, putting on a performance and winning. Stevenage did a job on us, they turned up, did the basics right, wanted it more than us and they deserved the win, let’s face it. They’re at the top of the league for a reason. When you look at them, player for player we should be better than them, but they’re doing the basics at the moment. We’ve probably gone away from what got us success in the past, but we’ve got to find something.”
With over a week to go until Luton’s next match due to the international break, Shea did think that a swift appointment was essential to give the players some kind of lift going into their home game against Mansfield on October 18, However, he wouldn’t be swayed on whether he felt a more experienced manager was needed to try and get the Hatters going again, adding: “That’s above my pay grade, I’ll leave that to Gary (Sweet, chief executive) and whoever to sort that out.
"Hopefully they get the right man in. It’s a shame what happened with Matt as I really liked him. Great fella, good coach, it’s just the same with Rob (Edwards), it just hasn’t happened. You hoped every day that he’d turn it around, but he just never got the rub of the green. Alex has come in and set the team up, it’s a shame it hasn’t gone as well as he would have liked, but we want to get a manager in as soon as possible to get working with the players, get his ideas across, and hopefully get us ready for Mansfield, as it’s terrible what’s happened.”