Town chief happy if 'annoyed' Palmer wants to 'show him' he should be included

Luton boss Jack Wilshere is more than happy if an ‘annoyed’ Hull City midfielder Kasey Palmer wants to ‘show him’ he should be included in the starting XI after a spell out of the side recently.

The 29-year-old was an instant starter after arriving from the Championship outfit on a deal until the end of the season back in January, beginning matches against Plymouth Argyle, Huddersfield Town, Blackpool and Bradford City, as it was against the Bantams where he absolutely starred, with a superb display in the 2-1 victory which breathed life into the Hatters ailing play-off hopes and properly announced his talents to the Town faithful.

However, he then made a costly error in the 3-1 loss to leaders Cardiff City, caught on the ball in his own half for the Bluebirds to move 2-1 in front late in the first period, with a third soon following, but kept his place for the 1-0 loss at struggling Wigan Athletic a few days later and the home match against Burton Albion.

The Jamaican international was then taken off at half-time in the 1-1 draw with the Brewers for deadline day acquisition Davy van den Berg, and has been on the bench for the last three games against Plymouth and Northampton in the Vertu Trophy, plus the third tier trip to Port Vale last weekend, although still came on in all three of those fixtures.

During Wednesday night’s semi-final tie with the Cobblers, Palmer looked back to the kind of player who ran the show against Bradford, getting the ball and just driving at the opposition, full of backheels and tricks which were lapped up by the Kenilworth Road crowd, as he appeared to relish the occasion of helping the Hatters reach Wembley.

Asked just why he had dropped out of the side, and his response to that, Wilshere said: “I feel like sometimes he’s probably annoyed at me for not playing him and probably there’s that little bit about him that thinks, ‘okay I’m going to show him,’ which I don’t mind, I quite like that. I thought you saw that on Wednesday and hopefully he can keep that going.

“Kasey will play games, I’ve spoken to him a lot and sometimes when you come in and you hit the ground running, it’s then hard to keep that momentum going. Especially when the team, I think about the Cardiff game, I think about the Wigan game, the team didn't perform and it’s then difficult to get that momentum going. I’m also a believer to try and help players and keep them hungry, sometimes you can take them out to get them to go again and they go to the next level. Kasey is important to us, he’s a top player as we can see and he will play games.”