Town boss explains why he took Kasey Palmer off at half time

Luton chief Jack Wilshere explained the reasoning behind taking off midfielder Kasey Palmer at half time during the 1-1 draw against Burton Albion on Saturday.

The 29-year-old, who arrived on loan from Hull City back in January, has had a starring role for the Hatters in recent weeks, none more so than when he ran the show during the 2-1 victory over promotion hopefuls Bradford City just a fortnight ago. Having only played 421 minutes for the Tigers during the opening six months of the campaign, Palmer started his seventh game in succession for Luton when the Brewers came to Kenilworth Road at the weekend, this time alongside the recalled George Saville for the first time, as he made it 557 minutes on the field in his short stint with the club so far.

On a difficult playing surface, the Jamaican international admittedly wasn’t having his best game on this occasion, with a 56 percent passing success rate on the day, winning just one ground duel, as although Town led through Nahki Wells’ goal on 13 minutes, there was precious little else in the way of an attacking threat during the opening period.

During the closing stages of the half, Palmer found himself in referee Seb Stockbridge’s notebook after a mistimed sliding challenge on George Evans, as he didn’t reappear for the second 45 minutes, replaced at the break by January deadline signing Davy van den Berg, who got his longest run-out since arriving on loan from Dutch side FC Utrecht.

Palmer made his way around the pitch to head back to the dug-out moments after the game had restarted, receiving a warm ovation from the Luton supporters, as he could only watch in frustration as Luton gifted the visitors a stoppage time equaliser, as they dropped more points in their battle to try and make the play-offs this term.

Asked just why he was taken off, Wilshere said: “It wasn’t a knock, it was a little bit because he’d been booked, but also we wanted to get Davy on the pitch as well. Davy’s come in and he’s been a little bit stop-start off the bench and then he only got 10 minutes the other night, so we want to get Davy up to full fitness. It was also to look after Kasey a little bit. He’s played a lot of minutes since he came in from Hull where he didn’t play a lot at the start of the season, so his minutes have increased a lot and we want to look after him, but we wanted to get Davy on the pitch.”