Wilshere 'happy' with Millers win but felt Town could have scored more

Luton boss Jack Wilshere declared he was ‘happy’ with his side’s 2-0 victory at Rotherham United on Tuesday night, although felt the Hatters could definitely have scored more than the two goals they managed on the night.

Town headed to their already relegated rivals needing a victory to maintain their play-off hopes, and were able to do that thanks to a first-half brace from on-loan Hull City midfielder Kasey Palmer. His first came on eight minutes when he clinically turned home Shayden Morris’s cross, then also arriving on cue to double the lead when glancing the winger’s delivery into the net just before the break.

A completely dominant opening 45 minutes by Luton saw the visitors have over 70 percent possession, but they were unable to add to their tally, Davy van den Berg fluffing his lines on more than occasion. After the interval, Nahki Wells hit the bar from close range, as Town definitely didn’t have it their own way from then on, the Millers coming on strong, lively substitute Jack Holmes going close on more than one occasion.

The Hatters were able to secure all three points though, as speaking about his side’s efforts, Wilshere said: “I think we could have got more, that’s the feeling afterwards. The players in the dressing room were demanding from each other which I love, because that’s the only way we improve and we keep winning games. The context was tonight we had to come here and win, so I’m really satisfied and happy with that, a good performance where I thought we could have scored a few more goals.

“Scoring early helped, we spoke about that. We didn’t start well enough at Mansfield and we gave ourselves a mountain to climb. We didn’t want to be in that position today, so we spoke about that and the players executed it. The only frustrating thing was in that controlling spell we still want to have threat and purpose. We did, we did have enough threat and purpose, but didn’t execute the final pass or the final cross well enough.”

Having swapped ends looking like they could go and hit three or four, Luton weren’t able to assume the same kind of control they had, but Town’s back-line came through the tests that came their way, with Hakeem Odoffin in particular standing out, making several excellent blocks to prevent Rotherham pulling one back.

On that, and a second clean sheet in 15 matches, Wilshere continued: “You need to give credit to the back-line. I thought Kal was excellent, I thought Haks was outstanding since he’s come back for us and a few really important blocks. Coming away from home, the amount of times this season where we haven’t kept a clean sheet, so we’re proud of that as well.

"We spoke about it a lot. Ultimately you have to be able to execute and sometimes this season we’ve given away cheap goals, other times away from home I thought we defended okay and they score a good goal, but clean sheets is the game. When we approach a game, yes we want to have the ball and we want to attack, but it’s really important how we defend.

"It’s not just the back-line we always talk about defending with 11 and if we want to be a team that’s going to press high, we have got to be good in the duels up high, but also expect sometimes that they’re going to be able to play long balls on the back-line. That’s where we’ve got to compete, land on second balls and we’ve done it, not consistently well enough, but tonight we did it really well.

"We need to keep building on that, as with a clean sheet you’re always in the game when you’ve got the quality in attacking areas that we do. So credit to the back-line, I thought they stayed focused throughout. In the first half they were really good at helping us attack and control the game, then there were questions asked of them in the second half which you expect. Ideally you score three or four at that point, but we hadn’t so we still have to defend our box and I thought we did that really well.”

Palmer’s first half double meant that after a run of scoring just three goals in seven away matches, with four blanks, Town are now up to nine in their last four fixtures on the road, also finding the net more than once in eight of their last nine encounters anywhere. How that has happened, Wilshere stated: “It comes from structure.

"The boys are understanding, they’re putting themselves in good positions. Whenever we set up a gameplan, it’s about how do we get our attacking players in good positions where they can hurt the opposition. That comes with hard work, with training, with developing and the players are doing that. Then you have to have the quality when you’re in there to execute the pass and the goal and we’ve definitely got that.”

The result at the AESSEAL New York Stadium saw Luton leapfrog Plymouth Argyle who drew 1-1 at Bradford City, as they are now in seventh, three points behind both Stockport County, who lost 1-0 at home to Mansfield, and Stevenage, after they beat Barnsley 1-0. Town are also five points adrift of the Bantams with two games left, meaning should they beat Barnsley at Kenilworth Road on Saturday, they could still force their way into the top six on the last day of the campaign.

Wilshere said: “We just have to give yourselves the best opportunity and that’s focusing on us, game by game. The next game now is a home game on Saturday against Barnsley, our last home game of the season in the league, so we have to make sure that we recover now. The boys have given a lot, they need to have a day off now, spend some time with their family and their kids, get some energy from them and then go again. We just have to focus on ourselves, make sure we’re giving ourselves the best opportunity and if teams slip up we’ll be ready to pounce.”

With 650 fans travelling to support the Hatters, as over 1,000 headed to Mansfield at the weekend, a grateful Wilshere added: “Credit to them, outstanding. Tuesday night, Rotherham away, it’s not easy to find the time, find the money to come and support the team. I think you can see from their reaction, but also from the reaction from the players towards them, we really appreciate them. We have done all season and at times this season we haven’t been good enough away from home and they’ve still stayed with us, so we really appreciate them.”