Teenager was suffering with injury ahead of the goalless draw

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere revealed that it was an injury which meant he opted to replace midfielder Jake Richards half time during yesterday’s goalless draw against Rotherham United at Kenilworth Road.

The 18-year-old summer signing from Exeter City, who scored his first goal for the club when Town won 3-0 at league leaders Stockport County last weekend, also gaining an assist when setting up Izzy Jones’ clinching strike, was starting his third league game in a row under Wilshere against the Millers. After a first half in which he showed some flashes of creativity in his role on the right hand side of Luton’s attack, as the hosts tried and failed to break down what was a stubborn visiting side, the teenager then didn’t reappear for the second period, on-loan West Ham attacker Gideon Kodua on in his place.

Asked in his post match press conference if that was a tactical switch to and inject the extra pace of the substitute into the final third, Wilshere said: “No, Jake had a knock, maybe yesterday or Thursday in training and credit to him, I love it about him, an 18-year-old that said ‘no, I really want to play.’ We wanted to give him that opportunity, I could see a little bit he was in pain, so we decided to take him off. Gideon was close (to starting) as well. When Jake got the knock we were obviously thinking about who could play and Gideon was probably a little bit unlucky that we chose to go with Jake, but we need everyone and I think the players are starting to see that.”