Wilshere fuming with defeat as he felt Luton had to win after early red card

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere was left dismayed his side ending up losing a game he felt they had no other option but to win when facing 10-man Huddersfield Town last night.

Following an opening 30 minutes in which not a lot happened at the Accu Stadium, the fixture was then spun on its head when home striker Alfie May prevented Kasey Palmer from getting away from him by pulling the hair of the Luton midfielder, which under the new rules saw him shown a straight red by referee Matt Corlett, an offence which carries a three match ban for violent conduct.

That meant Town were up against 10-men for an hour, although it was nearer 70 minutes with the extra stoppages, as they couldn’t make their man advantage count before half time, Terriers keeper Lee Nicholls remaining untroubled. With Luton knowing a victory would see them go level on points with their fellow play-off chasers, and potentially cut the gap to the rest of the top six, they then began the second period in the worst possible manner.

An ill-advised pass out from the back by Mads Andersen to an under pressure Liam Walsh saw the midfielder fail to control, Ryan Ledson on to the loose ball in a flash, letting fly with a truly magnificent instinctive effort from just inside his own half which flew over the back-pedalling Josh Keeley and into the net for what has to be the goal of the former England youth international’s life.

Now tasked with having to score just to get something from the game, against a team who had something tangible to cling on to, Luton dominated possession, but yet again created next to nothing, as it took them until the 71st minute to have a shot on target, that from Jordan Clark, who was playing as a makeshift number nine, easily parried away by Nicholls.

Shayden Morris’s cross somehow wasn’t turned into the net by from a few yards out by any of his team-mates either as if anything, the hosts looked more likely to score next, Radinio Balker putting two glorious chances over from set-pieces, as during seven minutes of injury time, the Hatters gave away free kick after free kick, never once getting the ball into the box where substitute Ali Al-Hamadi, who was fit enough to come on for the closing stages, was waiting.

It meant Luton suffering an embarrassing and utterly needless third straight 1-0 defeat on the road having gone down by the same scoreline at Exeter and Plymouth, as they are winless in six outside of Bedfordshire, taking one point from a possible 18, a run which is starting to make even their hopes of a play-off position look unlikely this term.

Speaking afterwards, a dejected Wilshere said: “Not good enough, not good enough and it’s hard to take. We have to win the game, we have to win the game and not even take a point. I thought we were the team that was trying in the first half and we spoke at half time about what we need to do and make sure that we do the basics really well but try to create more threat, get more numbers on the last line and we simply didn’t do it, so not good enough.

“We didn’t create enough clear-cut opportunities, which against a block, you know better than me, the team has struggled against that quite a lot this season, but they had one less so we have to do better. When we do create those moments, there wasn’t enough bodies in the box and we have to create more of those moments as well.

“It’s frustrating, but it's on me, it’s my job to make the players better, make sure they know how to create those clear-cut opportunities so it’s frustrating, but I’m also constantly trying to think about how can we change it? Who can we put on? Can we put another forward player on? We tried to do that in taking Mads off, but we still couldn't create the moments, so frustrating, but I have to look at it from my point of view, it’s my job to try and win the game.”

With Luton opting to play far more of a possession-based game since Wilshere took over, they unsurprisingly had more of the ball once more in West Yorkshire, making 488 passes with a completion rate of 83.2 percent, compared to their hosts’ 262, 65.6 percent of them finding their intended target. However, 74 of the Hatters’ passes were backwards, with 272 of them coming from the quintet of Keeley, Andersen, Teden Mengi, Nigel Lonwijk and Joe Johnson, as tellingly, they had just two more touches in the opposition’s penalty area than Huddersfield did.

Although the goal came from one such pass out from the back going awry, Wilshere wasn’t about to blame the tactics for the way in which his side were breached though, as he continued: “That’s not playing out from the back, that’s one pass into midfield which is an error. You look at the moments we did try to play out and we didn’t do it as often as we have done recently, but I thought we actually picked in the first half some nice moments to do it.

"That’s just a lapse in concentration rather than an over-playing thing as it’s a simple pass into midfield which is tough to take, but what I would say about Mads is he’s arguably been my most important player in certain moments. So we’ll look at it and we’ll show Mads it but it wasn’t an overplaying thing.”

One thing that did frustrate Wilshere was two decisions that went against his side in the first half, as twice the Hatters put crosses into the box which hit the arm of a Huddersfield defender when they slid in to try and block the delivery, neither seeing referee Corlett whistle and point to the spot.

Asked if he thought they should have been awarded not just one but two spotkicks, he added: “Yes, I think so, but apparently if he’s sliding and the ball hits his arm it’s not a penalty. I can’t keep talking about the inconsistency in refereeing because I’m not even sure, I don’t know. Was it a red? I don’t know, I haven’t seen it back. I’m not saying it’s bias against us, I’ll never say that, but it’s not good enough.”