Town chief bemused by Luton's poor showing from corners against Bantams
Hatters weren’t able to find the net during Bradford defeat
Hatters boss Jack Wilshere was left bemused with Luton’s serious lack of threat from set-pieces during their 1-0 defeat against Bradford City on Saturday.
Under the former England and Arsenal star, Town’s free kicks and corners had become a vital component of their attacking threat, particularly in the latter stages of last season, Kasey Palmer in particular scoring in successive games against Wycombe Wanderers and Exeter City when rising highest at the near post to nod home.
However this term, Luton have managed to find the net once from a free kick, Palmer volleying home from the edge of the box at Reading after Jake Richards’ delivery was headed out to him, but yet to do so from a flag-kick. The Hatters had more than enough chances to alter that at the weekend, with 14 corners won, but the majority of Liam Walsh’s balls into the box were either headed away by the imposing visiting defenders, or dealt with by Bantams keeper Jon McCracken.
Asked how disappointed he was by the lack of threat from such situations, Wilshere said: “If we can’t quite find our rhythm and they keep breaking up play in the second half, then set-pieces is the way of doing that. We showed that last year and we worked really hard on trying to give us some principles and a platform to score from, but also weaknesses of opposition. We spend so many hours on that, so I need to look back at that as there’s always something, there’s always a reason why that is and I don’t know why that is yet.”
In the first period, Luton looked like they were going to be able to break down against a Bradford side who went into the contest having only conceded four goals in six league matches and kept four clean sheets, Palmer curling wide of the target, while Emilio Lawrence also went close.
The Bantams were then easily able to make that five shut-outs from seven after the interval, as bar Gideon Kodua’s 90th minute shot that was saved by McCracken and Jordan Clark’s ambitious off-target attempt in stoppage time, they prevent Town scoring for the first time in the league since the loss at Wigan Athletic in February, and also at home since the goalless draw with Rotherham United in November 2025.
Asked how frustrated it was from Luton finding the net just twice in their last three matches, as opposed to 10 in four beforehand, having netted twice or more in a game for 11 consecutive third tier matches, Wilshere added: “We went from a team that was really clinical earlier in the season, scoring a lot of goals, to then kind of still having the same identity of getting there, but not executing and that is frustrating, of course it is.
"The positive thing is we are still doing that and I think about last season after a defeat or after a bad performance, the next performance and how it looks sometimes, and credit to the players as we knew that there was a lot of adversity from Stevenage, we knew that we had to do certain things better and the players produced that.
“They’re (Bradford) well drilled, they double up on the sides, they don’t let anything inside the pitch, but I felt like in the first half we exposed that a little bit, where they want to bring you to one side and we attacked the other side quicker, whether it was through Kasey or whether it was through Jake the other side. Then you have to make those moments matter against a team like this, as we all know they don’t concede many goals, they’ve got a good goalie as well, so I’m disappointed we didn’t maximise that.
"In the first half we have to score and we have to make that count as that’s why we work so hard, that’s why we spend the hours on the training pitch that we do, is to score goals, is to attack and have purpose. We definitely had that purpose in the first half and I don’t think we lacked it in the second half, we just allowed the opposition to take control of things without giving us a problem at the other end.
"I thought we’d go back out in the second half, have the same idea but maybe execute a little bit more and have a bit more tempo in our play, but we didn’t quite get there and we didn’t test the goalie enough. I’ve been there as a player when you’ve kind of been caught up in that and caught in the cycle of the ref’s making a bad decision and stopping play and you want to be on the front foot and question that, but you also know that you can’t really because you can’t speak to the ref. Then you have to go back, they play long ball, compete, they make it hard for you, you have to find that again and we didn’t do that well enough.”