Wilshere insists he isn't finding Hatters job tougher than expected

Luton boss Jack Wilshere insisted that he isn’t finding the job of managing the Hatters tougher than he initially expected following a slump in form that has severely hit the club’s play-off ambitions.

After tasting defeat in just four of his first 16 games in charge since being appointed in October, one of those on penalties in the FA Cup at League Two Fleetwood Town, then since the turn of the year, Wilshere has seen results take a worrying turn for the worse, with five defeats in nine fixtures, only able to mastermind a mere three victories in that time.

It means Town are now four points away from the top six with 14 games to go, as a 1-0 loss at struggling Wigan Athletic on Wednesday night, Luton’s sixth successive away reverse, led to a number of supporters now writing off any hopes of extending their season into May, such was the timid nature of the visitors’ display in Greater Manchester.

With that in mind, then asked if he felt the job was more difficult than he had originally anticipated, Wilshere, who replaced Matt Bloomfield after he left following a poor start to the season, said: “No, I knew what I was coming into. I knew that normally the manager doesn’t get changed if things are right, so I knew that things weren’t going great and my job was to come in and try and work that out. I had an understanding before I came in and I spoke to people that I knew within the club, some that know the club from the outside and I understood it, I understood the challenge.

"Of course when you’re in it and you’re living it every day, new things come up or things change, or you didn’t quite notice that thing. But I was clear with the players from the start that I want to build an identity with the team and show everyone a clear way we want to play, while also there was some work to do in the environment, at the training ground, to try and make things better.

"That’s why I was brought here and we’re still going with those things, we’re still trying to put things in place, we’re still trying to improve things, to try and get the players quicker to a higher level. So I have an understanding, but you never know until you come in and you start speaking to the players, to the people around here. It takes time to affect those types of things, takes time to affect people and for them to believe in what you’re trying to do, so we still have to keep working on that.”

Having been U18s head coach with Arsenal when he retired from playing, and on the coaching staff at Norwich City, taking two games in temporary charge, asked if he felt he had what it takes on to change things around from his position in the dug-out, Wilshere continued: “I played this game for a long, long time and when you play the game you have a feeling anyway. As a player I could kind of think we need to do more of this or we need to do more of that and from the sidelines I wanted to make sure I had complete faith in myself before I stepped into any first team football at any level and I did that at Norwich.

"That was kind of my role at Norwich, was to watch the iPad, see tactical things we think we need and sometimes it’s not tactical, sometimes it’s just a feeling. Sometimes it’s really obvious what we need, but also I’m surrounded by a lot of experience, all the coaches, but in particular Chris Powell, his input, his knowledge, not just on match-day, every single day.

“There’s not a day that goes by where I’m not having a chat with him, where I’m asking his opinion on something, whether that be how I talk to a player, how I handle a situation and the same thing goes into a match-day. We have a meeting before the games where all the coaches, we sit down and say if the game’s going like this, probably we need this, this type of player and then that’s how we come up with who’s going to be on the bench, and that’s not easy as well. But I’m confident that me and the coaches have what it takes to recognise that.”

With Tuesday night’s results going in Luton’s favour, they wasted another glorious opportunity to cut the gap on sixth-placed Huddersfield Town at the Brick Community Stadium, which means that the expectation is now amplified on tomorrow’s home game against Burton Albion if the Hatters are going to make a belated move to finish above the dotted line.

Wilshere added: “When you’re at this point of the season if you miss points when you think it was an opportunity to gain some, I’m not saying that we expect to go to Wigan and just beat Wigan, but I think that we’ve got a better team than them, I think we’ve got better players than them so when you lose a game you’ve got to look at other things that happened.

"It wasn’t good enough and then the next game becomes even more important at this stage as we know what our ambition is and we know what we need to do. The next one is at home which is a good one, but we also understand that it’s not going to be easy and that creates a bit of pressure.”