Wilshere explains why Luton winger Alli was left out once more at Exeter
Attacker wasn’t named in the squad against his former club
Luton boss Jack Wilshere has explained why Milli Alli wasn’t involved in the match-day squad against Exeter City on New Year’s Day, although insisted the attacker will get another opportunity to prove his worth for the Hatters.
The 25-year-old was a regular under previous boss Matt Bloomfield, starting all but one of his 11 league games in charge this term, also named on the teamsheet for Wilshere's first match at the helm, a 2-0 home loss to Mansfield back in October. He then dropped out of the team against Northampton due to illness, making three further third tier substitute outings, as his next chance from the opening whistle came almost two months later, the 2-2 draw at home to Port Vale last month.
However, Alli was taken off by Wilshere at half time against the Valiants and has been left out of the next four match-day 18s, including at St James Park, where despite Luton’s squad struggling with illness and injury, the Hatters boss opted to go with Shayden Morris once more, and despite Gideon Kodua missing out with a knock, put young full back Harry Fox on the bench instead with Alli once more left out in the cold.
Asked why the former Grecian didn't get a chance to go up against his old club, Wilshere said: “I’ve said it before about when we pick a bench and how difficult it is. Obviously Gids has the shirt at the moment in that position and then I decided to give Shayden (Morris) an opportunity against Leyton Orient and in my opinion he took it. He scored a goal, so that’s all. Milli will get another opportunity and that will be down to him to take it.”
Alli wasn’t the only notable exclusion ahead of Town’s 1-0 defeat in Devon, as Wilshere made five changes for the first clash of 2026, goalkeeper Josh Keeley missing his first league contest of the campaign, with James Shea taking over between the posts, while the in-form Kodua was also absent, Lamine Fanne, Nahki Wells and Mads Andersen dropping to the bench.
In came Reuell Walters, George Saville, Jerry Yates and Cohen Bramall, as explaining his selection process, Wilshere added: “Keeley picked up a little knock which could have been made worse. You could probably see it when we were making the subs against Orient. I know some teams use the goalie doing down as a tactic, that wasn’t the case, he was feeling something, so we decided to keep him on, assessed it and he probably wasn’t ready.
"Also when you’ve got a number two like Sheasy with his experience and what he means to the club, and what the club means to him then it makes that decision a little bit easier. Gids we wanted to wait a little bit longer for. He travelled with us and we waited until this morning to see how he was, probably a little bit too soon for him, nothing to worry about, but we didn’t want to put him at risk.
“We just wanted to get some freshness, we put an experienced midfield there, being away from home, maybe a little bit of a different mentality and the players know what it takes, know what it is. So we rotated Lamine out, Nahki’s just come back and played two 60, 70 minutes, so we wanted to make sure that he was okay for the long term.
"Mads the same, he’s been outstanding, and I think he would have actually helped us today with the long balls, but the last thing we wanted to do was put him in and risk him then lose him for a longer time. So it’s frustrating, probably for the fans as I know we want a settled team, we want a settled back four, we want players to find a little bit of rhythm and hopefully we can get there as the games slow down.”