Wilshere insists Luton are good enough to play his way on the road

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere insists his players are good enough to play the type of football he is asking them to on their travels, although understand he may have to mix things up slightly as well if Town are to arrest the slump they are currently on.

Since taking over in October, the former England and Arsenal star has turned things around massively on home soil, Luton now unbeaten in 10 games at Kenilworth Road, winning six of them, after struggling under previous manager Matt Bloomfield. It has been a different story on the road though as after picking up victories in his opening two matches at Northampton and Stockport, Town have lost five out of six outside of Bedfordshire, with just one draw in that time, as they have failed to score in their last three away matches too.

Being a possession-based side on the road has led to its struggles, Town’s domination of the ball and slow build-up play leading to no shots on target at Exeter City on New Year’s Day and just one in the 1-0 loss to Huddersfield Town last month, in which they were up against 10 men for over an hour. Asked recently if he thought the squad he has available to him is capable of playing in the manner he wants on their travels, Wilshere said: “Yes, but also with a little bit of humility from myself. I probably have to have a look at playing with a bit more variation sometimes, a little bit different.

"It takes time. I’ve had four months now and I think you can see the players can do it. I think we just need to pick the moments we do it a little bit more, be a little bit more smart, have a little bit more game management at times. That’s something we’ve spoken about, we need to see it, we need to deliver it. We don’t want to be predictable as a team, we don’t want to play the same way the whole time, and that’s something we’re looking to do.”

While Luton are third in the possession stats for the entire division this term with 57.7 percent, they now head to a side who enjoy having the ball even more, Cardiff topping the charts with 61.1 percent. Despite that, Wilshere still wants his side to show the willingness to still take possession on the day and try to put their opponents on the back foot in front of their own fans.

He continued: “It’s going to be a game where we want to take the ball like always. We want to be brave, have courage, but accepting that they want the same thing as well and they’re pretty good at it, so there will be times where we have to suffer together and accept there are times we’re going to have to be defending and going to have to do it together and that’s everyone.

"We defend with 11 players, we want to be compact, close the distances, but ultimately we want to show courage and take the ball and try and take the game to them. Not many teams have been able to do that, so our challenge is to go there and try and make them defend for long periods and try and limit the time we have to defend.

“We have to show courage. Courage for me is being brave, is wanting the ball and I’ve spoken to the players about it ever since I’ve been here. It’s about building belief, building confidence and part of that was we’re going to have to show courage in tough moments. We’re going to need to be more consistent with it and probably that’s why Cardiff are why they are as they are consistently dominating the ball and making sure they are the team that are aggressive, that are attacking and that’s what we’re trying to do.

"We’re still building towards that and I think the Bradford game was a really good marker for us to see how far we’ve come. We want to have control, but we also want to have purpose and I think the balance was really good in that game, but we haven’t done that away from home for a while so we have to show a different type of courage, but also believe in ourselves.”

One area where the two teams are also virtually neck and neck is clean sheets, City having one more with 12 to the Hatters’ 11. Wilshere couldn’t hide his annoyance that they weren’t level in that department though, having conceded in the last minute of stoppage time against the Bantams last time out. He added: “We should have been joint first from last week, I wasn’t happy about conceding that goal late on. I think the two teams are quite similar, of course I said after the game that I don’t think they’re better than us, they’ve been better than us, that’s why they are where they are.

"But it’s two teams who try and do the same thing, try and dominate the ball, try and take control of the game and they’ve been better at it, more consistent at it over the course of the season. They’ve managed to maintain that and be the team that’s aggressive with the ball and stopped teams having the ball and when teams don’t have the ball, they don’t have an opportunity to score. So I think that’s why both teams have got a lot of clean sheets and let’s see who can take control of the game.”