Wilshere given a boost as Hatters duo both back in training ahead of Posh trip
Clark and Wells expected to be fit for Peterborough clash
Hatters boss Jack Wilshere has revealed that both Jordan Clark and Nahki Wells are in contention to face Peterborough United tomorrow.
The long-serving Clark, who has played 230 games for Luton since arriving on a free transfer in the summer of August 2020, missed Tuesday night’s 3-1 victory over Doncaster Rovers due to illness, but is now back in training at the Brache. Speaking about him, and the new attacking midfield role he has been playing recently, just behind the lone forward, Wilshere said: “Clicks is okay, he trained yesterday. It was frustrating that he missed the game through illness, but in a way, it kind of worked out okay as we won the game and we get a fresh Jordan Clark, so he’s back.
“First of all, Clicks is an intelligent player that recognises the right moment to drop a little bit lower. Recently, in the games against Barnsley and Leicester, they wanted to press us high and with (Liam) Walsh and Donners (Jamie Donley) a little bit lower, they were getting pressed and getting marked, so there’s probably no advantage of trying to play through, but Clicks recognises the right moments to get closer to Nahki and we played little bit more into the front-line and then win the second balls.
"We want to play with a structure, but probably what everyone loves, and I love about Jordan Clark, is that he starts in a structure and then he waits for the right moment to leave that. He has the freedom to do that as he’s an intelligent player and hopefully we can get him on the ball more in those areas as he can definitely hurt opposition there.”
Meanwhile, leading scorer Wells was also a major doubt for tomorrow’s contest having come off just before the interval in midweek, replaced by Tudor Mendel, as he appeared to be holding his thigh. Thankfully it isn’t as bad as first feared for the Bermudan international, who has eight goals this term, as Wilshere continued: “Nahki’s okay. It was like a neural thing, I’m not a physio, so I won't even try to explain it, but he felt a sensation that he wasn’t comfortable with.
"We have to trust Naks, he’s a 36-year-old who knows his body better than anyone else and he’s also given a lot over the last five games. We made a decision to bring him off as we didn’t want to risk him. He’s done really well for us and we want to keep him fit. We gave him a few days to recover, and he should train today.”
Despite leading the shooting ranks for Town this term, Wells was deployed slightly deeper behind the recalled Callum Marshall on Tuesday night, although still produced an impressive display, almost setting up his team-mate twice during his 40 minutes on the field. On the duo both being selected, Wilshere added: “They’re two intelligent players, two different number nines which we need. We need the ability to have variation in the way we attack and Nahki had the shirt for a while as he was doing so well and scoring goals.
"Let’s not forget that Marshy is also a really, really good striker who we want to work with, we want to make even better and in my opinion, the more time he gets on the pitch, the better he looks and he’s scored some important goals for us. They can both play together, they can also both play as a single nine, but we want to keep them both fit and both hungry.
“We had conversations last year, me and Nahki, and did some work with him in the meeting room around playing a little bit deeper. It never really happened, but we identified it. How he plays as a nine when he drops in and sometimes like a little bit of a false nine, he has the ability to do that. We spoke about that last year and the other night he did, played a little bit deeper, but the intention was only at the right moment would he drop down, which I thought he did really well, so let’s see what we look like tomorrow, but we have the option to do that.”