Town boss concerned by his players' reaction to MK Dons jeers

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere admitted he was left concerned by just how some of his players were going to react following the jeers that came their way from travelling supporters during and after the 2-1 defeat at MK Dons on Saturday.

With Town appearing to have got their league campaign back on track courtesy of a thumping 4-1 victory at Wycombe Wanderers in their previous fixture, expectancy levels were high amongst the massive 6,000-strong away contingent who made up over a third of the 16,377 attendance inside the ground at the weekend, particularly with the hosts yet to register a league victory themselves after winning promotion from League Two last term.

However, despite looking to dominate proceedings, Luton fell behind to a wonder-strike from Alex Gilbey midway through the first half, the midfielder seeing his hopeful 35-yard angled cross-shot fly over James Shea and into the top corner, with the frustrations from the away end audible at the end of the first half, along with parts of the second as Town tried to get back on level terms.

Once they managed to do so through Jordan Clark’s first league goal of the campaign with 20 minutes left, it looked like the Hatters were in pole position to go on and claim all three points, until a bad mistake from George Johnston saw the usually reliable defender give away a totally needless penalty that Aaron Collins tucked in for the winner.

Unable to find another goal to at least claim a point, the final whistle led to further boos for Wilshere, his coaching staff and the players when they went over to a disgruntled away end, who have now seen their side lose four out of their last seven third tier matches, to sit 16th in the table, just three points above the relegation zone.

Asked if he was concerned by the response from those who made the short trip to Buckinghamshire, with Town in action again tomorrow night when entertaining struggling Barnsley, the Luton manager said: “I understand that, I’m concerned, I worry about the players and how they cope with that, you never know. I think they all have an individual way of dealing with that.

"Some players deal with it well, some players are fine, some players have experienced that throughout their careers, some players haven’t. So my concern is for the players that over the next few days, the job is to make sure we put a team out that have no fear. We know what we’re going into, we know there’s some frustration, of course. I understand the importance of this game (against MK Dons) and the players did, so that’s probably why they’re frustrated as well, but my only concern is the ones who can’t cope with that.

“We wanted to win the game as much as they did and probably the frustrating thing for them, for me, for us, for all the players as well who are also very frustrated is we feel like we’ve been here before, where we’ve threatened to get a good away win and then we come to a game where we should win the game, in my opinion, and we don't, and then we’ve got a game on Tuesday. It’s the same feeling of, we know what we need to do Tuesday, yes, but we had to do that today, so that’s the frustration. I understand their frustration and we have to bounce back, which is annoying.”

Luton’s players had also been jeered during the first period when, just before the interval, the visitors opted to pass back to Shea from near enough the halfway line, rather than go forward, which led to a crescendo of loud boos from the travelling faithful, who wanted to see their team push forward instead. Wilshere too thought they should have grabbed the bull by the horns, as he added: “I was frustrated in that moment as well as I felt we could live in their half a little bit more.

"We could have more intensity to get free, because it’s hard when you face a block and you have to understand what we’re trying to do. You have to then be clean technically and do it with intensity. We did it for most, but in that moment, I felt as well we probably should have gone forward. When I watch it back and see all the chances, I’m going to be frustrated.

"We just have to do a little bit better, even in the first half, we got there a couple of times where it’s either a cross to the back post where we go to the front post, or a cross to the back post and we hit the front man, and that’s frustrating. We spoke a lot about doing a lot of things that require zero talent and then we get the ball, showing our talent, we weren’t consistent with that enough.”