Town chief praises 'intelligent' FC Utrecht loanee after his full Luton debut

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere was eager to talk up the full debut of on-loan FC Utrecht midfielder Davy van den Berg during Tuesday night’s Vertu Trophy success over Plymouth Argyle.

The 26-year-old moved to Kenilworth Road on transfer deadline day just under a month ago, penning a deal with the Hatters that contains a conditional obligation to buy in the summer. He made an immediate debut from the bench in the 2-1 victory over Bradford City before also coming on in the next three League One matches as well, featuring against Cardiff City, Wigan Athletic and Burton Albion.

Although he played nine games for his parent club this term, van den Berg had only started four games, and not since the 1-0 Eredivisie loss at FC Groningen on September 14, it saw Wilshere opt to give the ex-Netherlands youth international his first outing from the opening whistle against the Pilgrims in midweek.

Having played 65 minutes, van den Berg managed a 76 percent passing success rate during his time on the field, with one successful dribble and three passes into the final third, as he also had six defensive contributions, winning all but one of his five ground duels, also on corner duty as one set-piece was headed wide narrowly by Mads Andersen. Now having seen him in action for the longest time since he arrived, Wilshere said: “I'm really pleased.

"You can see he’s an intelligent player when you speak to him after, he really understands the structure, really understands how his position or how he moves to try and affect the opposition and help his team-mates. That’s his first start in quite a long time, so again we have to be careful with him, but a really intelligent player who can find passes, who understands how to play within a structure. There’ll be more to come from him, but I’m really happy with his first start.”

The midfielder had also been brought on for the second 45 minutes in Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Burton Albion, replacing Kasey Palmer at the break, as although van den Berg is looking to build up his time on the pitch, Wilshere knows they will have be careful with the recent addition, as he added: “We have to manage him, have to manage his minutes, his load, to try and keep him on the pitch for the rest of the season.

"It’s hard as you’re impatient a little bit and you know his quality, so we’ll try and get that balance right. I think we have done really well since I’ve been here, working with the medical team, working with the performance team to try and maximise performance. I think Mads (Andersen) is a really good example of that, I know he got a knock the other night, but sometimes you can’t help that. We want to be managing players, managing their training minutes, managing their loads, so we can maximise performance.”