Wilshere admits it was 'tough' for his Luton players to try and break down 'relentless' Millers

Luton boss Jack Wilshere felt it was extremely ‘tough’ for his players to try and break down a Rotherham United side who were ‘relentless’ in their desire to defend during this afternoon’s goalless draw at Kenilworth Road.

Going into the contest, Town were searching for a fifth successive victory in all competitions, while the Millers had won four out of five third tier matches, but it quickly became apparent that the visitors had their hearts set on a point. That became even greater when strike duo Jordan Hugill, who went close with a good header early on, and Martin Sherif both went off just before the break and then at half time, meaning they played the second 45 minutes with 11 men behind the ball at times.

Luton never really looked like breaking them down either, as their cumbersome play in defence, often keeping hold of the ball for too long and turning backwards rather than looking to go forward, meant they didn’t test visiting keeper Cameron Dawson during the first half, Jerry Yates unable to turn home from close range and Lamine Fanne shooting wide.

After the break things improved ever so slightly, substitute Gideon Kodua with the two best opportunities, one cross-shot saved by Dawson as he put another snapshot off target, while Yates saw an attempt deflect away too, Zack Nelson and Teden Mengi both off target from range. Summing up the afternoon, Wilshere said: “Tough, tough for the players because I played against teams that come and just sit in and defend, and you have to be brave, you have to have courage, you have to take risks at times because the distances are so close.

“You have to pass it into areas where the player receiving has to be really good, really clean, to try and just create something, create a little opening or someone to just jump out of defence, but I was proud of the players for continuing to do it the same way. I know we spoke a lot about connecting with the fans and we want the fans to be with us and we really felt they were today. It’s not always been the case when the team has tried to, before I was here, have that kind of game, a little bit slower, a little bit more calculated. I was proud of the players and the fans clapped us off which we’re happy about.”

Asked if he had expected a Millers side, who had two shots of their own, with just one on target, plus a mere 30 percent of the ball, to display such a defensive set-up throughout the contest, although Luton did have a let off when a visiting attacker looked to be away from skipper Kal Naismith and on his way through to face Josh Keeley in the first period, only for referee Craig Hicks to pull play back for a foul by Mads Andersen, going on to book the Danish centre half, Wilshere continued: “Yes, and we expected it, but probably not as relentless as that.

“We have to respect them, that’s their playing style, that's the way they see it. They’ve got two big number nines that they started with, so their gameplan was also to try and put the ball in the box, but we dealt with those moments really well. Our press was good, we spoke about that, we didn't want to commit too many players to open up a lot of spaces as we knew it was going to go, but we also wanted to put some pressure on the long balls.

"I thought that was good, but I don't want to say frustrating because I’m proud of the players for trying to do the same things. Yes we have to get better at when we play against teams like that and we do break the line and we do start to break the second line, now we’re attacking their last line, we have to break it, we have to be confident.

"Sometimes we just have to put balls in their box, as I felt probably in the first half, in those moments when we did break the line, we then came back and they were allowed to get back into their shape. But listen we’re building and we’ll look at that, the same way we do when we beat Stockport 3-0, what we did well, what we can do better and that’s important as I feel like we’ll face that a lot this season, especially here.”

With Town having 12 shots all game, but only three of them requiring Dawson to intervene, then asked whether their lack of goal threat was the biggest frustration from the contest, Wilshere added: “I think it’s about getting the balance. We spoke in the week and prepared the team to have a lot of control in the game and I think we did have that. When you do have that, you still have to have that threat, you still have to play with purpose and you still have to try and win the game.

"I think we did, probably not as consistently as we would like. I think about Cohen (Bramall) getting in behind in the first half and we always have to have that threat in behind. Although we’re going to be a team that likes to play, if teams start to be aggressive, which I thought at times you could see the wingbacks for Rotherham starting to jump, in those moments we have to then use it and use our speed on the sides. Overall I’m proud, but we have to look at the things, the threat, the purpose, to try and get better.”