Wilshere feels Luton 'owe' Barnsley after 5-0 thrashing still leaves him 'sweating'
Town were thumped at Oakwell in November
Luton chief Jack Wilshere insisted the Hatters ‘owe’ Barnsley a slice of revenge following their worst result of the season when hammered 5-0 at Oakwell earlier in the campaign, a result he admits still leaves him ‘sweating’ at night.
Back on November 22 and in the sixth game of the new manager’s spell, then having won at both Northampton Town and Stockport County in his opening two matches, life on the road was looking easy for the Hatters under Wilshere. That all came crashing down at Oakwell though, Town falling 3-0 behind in the first half, conceding twice more in the second period to be royally thrashed 5-0, starting a run of 11 winless games outside of Bedfordshire.
Luton now get their first chance to rectify that result when the Tykes are at Kenilworth Road tomorrow afternoon, as the visitors will be travelling away from home for the last time under boss Conor Hourihane, who confirmed last Saturday that he will be leaving his role at the end of the campaign. Speaking about the game, and the opportunity of putting one over on the Tykes, Wilshere said: “I said to the players today, I still wake up sometimes in the middle of the night sweating, thinking about that game, but listen, it’s a completely different context.
"They’re a completely different team, they’ve improved, they’ve obviously got a different situation now with Conor leaving at the end of the season, but they’re a good team. When you’re a player preparing for a game, straight away your mind takes you back to the last time you played them, whether it be an individual battle, whether it be the scoreline, so we need to be aware of that. I actually watched that game back and for 20 minutes we were okay and then we just gave goals away, as we were at that point at that stage of the season.
"We know their threats, we know they’re a team that want to play, they’ve got good players on the side that can hurt you. We know from the last game and the data tells us they’re a dangerous team on transition as well. They’ve got good players who can dribble up the pitch and travel so we need to be ready for everything. I hope like the players feel like we owe them one as that one hurt and we need to put that right.”
One of the main men for Barnsley that day was 16-goal midfielder Davis Keillor-Dunn who has since left and signed to Wrexham, although they do still have a number of threats available, including Reyes Cleary who starred for the hosts in the debacle, as Wilshere continued: “They’ve got some good players in the middle of the pitch, they can find them as well. I like the way they play, I’ve got a lot of respect for Conor and what he’s been trying to do this season.
"They’ve been similar to us at times when you talk about consistency. You think you had it and then you give a goal away or something bad happens and they probably haven’t recovered from that, but they’ve still got good players. They’ve got Cleary on the side who can hurt you, they’ve got (Luca) Connell, they’ve got (Jonathan) Bland in the middle who can hurt you. They’ve got good footballers for this level, who will want to be proving a point going into next season as well.”
The Hatters showed just how far they had come since that trip to South Yorkshire last weekend when they trailed 2-0 to Mansfield after 28 minutes. Rather than throw the towel in, Town went on to hit back with two goals in quick succession either side of half time to ensure they picked up a point in a game they completely dominated but couldn’t score again. Asked just how things have improved, Wilshere added: “I think the mentality, because it is a mentality thing. When we prepare for a game, we always prepare to win.
"Things can happen in a game where you go one-nil down or two-nil down at times, that doesn’t change then. We didn’t spend all the time looking at the opposition thinking we can win and score goals against them, but then just because you’re two-nil down it doesn’t change. That’s a mentality thing, because of course when you’re two-nil down it really feels like there’s a pressure and the next goal is really important, but you have to be able to handle that and we’ve showed we can.”