Wilshere calls for Luton to show a 'different mentality' on the road after Grecians loss

Luton boss Jack Wilshere called for his side to demonstrate a ‘different mentality’ after falling to a thoroughly disappointing 1-0 reverse at Exeter City this afternoon.

The Hatters went into the contest eager to build on a run of two straight victories over the festive period, scoring seven goals without reply, but unable to muster a single shot on target in the 90 minutes, stretched their winless run on the road to four matches, now having taken just one point from a possible 12 outside of Bedfordshire to drop to three points away from the play-offs.

Speaking afterwards, a frustrated Wilshere, who had made five changes to his team, with James Shea, Reuell Walters, George Saville, Cohen Bramall and Jerry Yates come into the side from the 3-0 success over Leyton Orient, said: “You need a different mentality when you come away from home. I thought we started the game and we took control, we showed who we wanted to be today, took the game to them and arrived in some dangerous areas. Then we allowed them to build a little bit of momentum by playing long balls, we didn’t really deal with them well enough.

"It’s disappointing, but we have to remember as well the players have given a lot of energy the last seven to 10 days, including Reading. It’s tough in this league and we have to understand that we need to build players that can do that and sometimes as well you just need a little bit different when you play two, three games in a row. You just need to find a way and I felt in the second half against Orient, we needed a bit more of that mentality, okay we’re going to suffer at times, when we get the ball, can we hurt them, but we didn’t really do that today.

“I made five changes as we tried to freshen things up and I also understand it’s not easy for players to come in and perform, but especially when you don’t really have that much training time in this period as you have to recover, play, go again and the only little bit of training they will get is now after the game when you see the subs and the other players running. I’ll have to watch it back and see where exactly we couldn’t quite find our rhythm, couldn’t quite deal with their long balls well enough. Then the crowd get going, they build a little bit of momentum and we concede from a set-piece which we’ve been really good at this season so it’s disappointing.”