Town chief happy to see Wells do the business from the spot against County
Striker is successful with his penalty during 2-2 draw
Luton boss Jack Wilshere was pleased to see forward Nahki Wells successfully step up to the mark when he netted Town’s first penalty of the campaign against Notts County on Saturday.
The 36-year-old had struggled from 12 yards last season, having started off impressively, crashing home in the 3-2 defeat against Plymouth Argyle at Kenilworth Road, that coming in a match where Jerry Yates also converted a spotkick too. From there, Wells went on to disappointingly miss his next two attempts, as both Doncaster Rovers' stopper Ian Lawlor and Mansfield’s Liam Roberts were able to repel his efforts.
With Jordan Clark taking over as Luton's regular taker, scoring five and missing just one from the next six attempts, Wells was given the opportunity when the Hatters hosted Barnsley in April, this time beating Owen Goodman in what was a 2-1 victory. However, the final game of the campaign saw Wells fail once more, as with Town 3-2 up at Bolton Wanderers, but their play-off hopes already sadly dashed, he couldn’t beat Jack Bonham in the Trotters goal.
Having had a less than 50 percent success rate, there was some confusion initially over who was going to grab the ball once Jack Gibbons had cleared Liam Walsh’s corner with his forearm at the weekend, as with Clark stretchered off due to what has now been confirmed as a broken jaw, skipper Kal Naismith appeared favourite to do the honours.
However, Wells then stepped forward, and although he might not have made the cleanest of contacts with his strike, was able to send his low drive beyond the dive of James Belshaw and into the side-netting to put Wilshere’s side 1-0 in front and improve his record to three from six attempts. In total, Wells has scored 24 and missed nine during his more than decade-long career, doubling his tally for the season, a dramatic improvement on last season when he took 15 games to do so.
It led Wilshere to say afterwards: “I’m happy for Nahki as he missed a few last year. He missed the last one at Bolton and I see him working on them all the time. From the start of pre-season, we nominated four penalty takers and they practice every day, well, when they feel like they want to practice. They know that if they’re on the pitch, it’s between them who takes it. I thought Kal was going to take it and he gave it to Nahki and he scored, so that’s fine. We get a goal up and we have to see it through to half time. It took a big deflection, so it was a bit frustrating that it was 1-1.”
Having appealed successfully for one penalty, Town then saw two waved away in the second period by referee Ben Speedie. The first came when substitute Callum Marshall, who had just made it 2-2, was clearly pushed to the ground inside the box when trying to reach Gideon’s Kodua’s tantalising cross, the hosts getting nothing.
They were then also denied when Lee Ndlovu’s clearing header connected with the outstretched arm of on-loan Strasbourg defender Ishe Samuels-Smith, but due to the rules, because it came off one of his own team-mates, then the officials were right on this occasion to wave play on. Discussing the incident, Wilshere added: “I didn’t see the push, but what I would say is when the fans respond like that, you have to look at it.
"It doesn’t mean that it’s a penalty of course, and then the second one, it’s handball, however we know the new rules are, if an opposition player heads it onto an opposition’s arm, that it’s not a penalty. I challenged that when they told us, because I think that’s too much of a grey area, because it can happen that someone heads it and his arm is in the wrong place, but for me, his arm shouldn’t be there. It’s not a natural position, but we know that with the rules, it’s not (a penalty).”