Shinnie urged to add goals to his game after Rovers winner

The Luton midfielder scored his first of the season but only a fourth in 41 appearances for the club, netting with an angled volley to see off Bristol Rovers at Kenilworth Road on Saturday.

Speaking afterwards, Jones said: “Without being too critical of him, it’s about time, as that’s the only thing he lacks from his game.

“He’s brave, he works, his distances are always good, his high intensity’s always good.

“He receives the ball anywhere on the pitch, he creates, he plays forward, he’s a wonderful attacking midfield player, he just needs to add goals to his game.

“It’s good to see that he did that, but we try to improve everyone here.

“Everyone comes here and they must be slightly deficient in something, because we believe we’ve get some wonderful footballers but if he was scoring goals as well, he’d be playing up a league again.

“So there’s room for improvement for all our players, but that’s probably Andrew’s.”

Shinnie himself knows it’s a facet of his game that needs improving, and wants to get back to the kind of form that saw him net 16 in a campaign for Inverness Caledonian Thistle back in 2012-13.

He said: “It’s about time, I was saying that in there, I should be adding more goals really, as I know I’ve got the ability to do it.

“It’s just probably I should be a bit more selfish at times, stop looking to pass all the time.

“I’ve kind of had a chat with him (Jones), but it’s just something I know myself really.

“It’s what I was kind of known for in my career. Back home in Scotland, I was a goalscoring midfielder really and it’s not probably happened as well as I would have hoped down in England.

“I feel that I still add stuff to the team even when I’m not scoring, but I know myself, I need to be adding more.

“I do work on it in training and we always work on finishing, it’s maybe just being more selfish really.

“Getting in the box rather than going out wide to give options to people, it’s all things like that. Maybe just the ball breaking to me in the box, I managed to take a touch and hit it, hopefully this can kick me on now.”

For the goal itself, Shinnie beat Pirates stopper Jack Bonham, the same keeper he had scored against last time for Luton, when netting in the 3-0 win over Carlisle in February.

When asked if he was aware of the coincidence, he said: “No, I didn’t know that, I didn’t pay attention to that.

“The ball broke to me and I knew the guy wasn’t going to be able to head it very far from his clearance, so I just managed to kill it on the chest and finish it.

“I was glad to get off the mark as we were playing well, we were dominating the game, it was just about getting the first goal. So it was just a relief really when it hit the net.”