Wilshere felt Luton struck the right balance when facing Bolton's 10 men
Hatters manage to grab a late point at the weekend
Luton boss Jack Wilshere felt his side struck the right balance when playing against 10 men for the final 20 minutes against Bolton Wanderers on Saturday.
The Town chief saw his side enter the final period of the game trailing 1-0 to the Trotters, following Aaron Morlay’s eighth minute goal, before Steven Schumacher’s team had Xavier Simons sent off after picking up two yellow cards, as having already been booked for fouling Jacob Brown, he slid in unwisely on Gideon Kodua and received his marching orders from referee Ruebyn Ricardo.
With Luton already enjoying the better possession and territory at that point anyway, the home supporters inside Kenilworth Road started to get slightly aggrieved when, despite being behind, then for one of the first times in the game, Town’s defence began to keep hold of the ball at the back for longer than at any point in the contest, trying to find a more measured way through their opponents’ midfield.
It led to cheers when Teden Mengi eventually picked out Gideon Kodua on the wing, rather than playing short to fellow centre half Nigel Lonwijk, and when he opted for a more ambitious long ball out to Cohen Bramall, despite the pass going out of play. With eight minutes remaining and still no sign of an equaliser, Wilshere then threw on speedsters Shayden Morris and Milli Alli, and it was Morris who darted past him man before standing up a cross to the far post that saw Jerry Yates involved, with the ball knocked on by Alli for Kodua to rifle home a leveller.
Town couldn’t quite find a winner in the closing stages as the game finished all square at 1-1, but on how they remained patient to unlock their opponents, Wilshere said: “When you're playing against a team at home that are probably one of the best in the league at build up and even if you look at their defensive side of the game they're very good as well, so you’re always open to a transition. I thought we limited them quite well apart from that moment (Amario Cozier-Duberry heading wide), but after that I felt like we were the ones trying to win and then of course they had ten men which at times can be harder as well.
"I thought we got that balance right of trying to take risks. It’s not always easy when you’re at home and you’re playing against ten men as you can feel the tension in the stadium. You have to pick your right moments either to speed it up, take a risk, or slow it down and I thought we got that right as you don’t want to risk it too much as that’s when the transitions come, so I’m happy with how played against the ten.
"There were some big performances all round. I think about Walshy (Liam Walsh), that’s his first three 90 minutes in a week for about five years or something, so we’ve had some players who have really stepped up this week, showed some resilience, showed some fire and fight on Tuesday (beating Huddersfield Town 2-1) and then the desire to go again. It’s been a tough week, but one where we’ve learned a lot and given a lot as well.”
Wilshere also felt that the leveller was just rewards for Luton’s second half display as well, as they heeded his words of advice at the interval, quickly getting on to the front foot which ensured they were picked up a point courtesy of Kodua. He added: “I’m really pleased because the message at half time was we’ve just got to believe more. We didn’t start great, but as the first half went on, we grew into it, we showed moments where we could have scored a goal or had a penalty and that was the message at half time, ‘lads we need to believe, we need to solve a little bit out of possession what they’re trying to do, but there’s nothing else.’
"’Enjoy having the ball, play forward, attack the goal, have more of a purpose.’ Always, always when you’re one-nil down, there’s always that risk when you’re trying to dominate, you’re trying to attack the box, you’re trying to take a little bit more risk that you’ll get transitioned on. Once that happened, but then after that we were the only team that were trying to win the game.
"We’re trying to attack the box, we made a few changes, but also with the formation and it felt like that worked and credit to the players, as they’re the guys that are on the pitch. You can feel the tension in the stadium, it’s falling around in the box and Gideon had the composure to put it away. So overall happy but I feel like it’s one when we watch it back we’ll say, we had the better moments, probably should have won, but I feel like Bolton will be there or thereabouts at the end of the season so it was important we didn’t lose today.”