Wilshere insists Luton's players are good enough but questions a crippling lack of 'belief'

Luton boss Jack Wilshere once more questioned a crippling lack of ‘belief’ and ‘confidence’ amongst his players after yet another disappointing result on Saturday as they were held to a 1-1 draw by bottom side Port Vale.

The Hatters headed to Vale Park desperate to end a run of six straight defeats on the road which has severely hampered any attempts at even getting into the League One play-offs this term, which is the very least expected by the club’s hierarchy, but gave themselves every chance of doing so when taking the lead outside of Bedfordshire for the first time since early November, Nahki Wells turning Emilio Lawrence’s cross over the line from close range.

Up against a side who had won two games on home turf all campaign and appear destined for the drop, the visitors were then pegged back when Ben Waine raced clean through to score on the half hour mark, the equaliser coming just moments after Nigel Lonwijk had seen his header well saved by Joe Gauci at the other end.

After a first half that contained more attacking threat than witnessed in previous games on the road, Luton then unfortunately reverted to type in the second period, as they didn’t ever give the look of a team who felt they could go on and retake the advantage, playing far too many safe passes, with substitute Ali Al-Hamadi’s shot comfortable gathered by Gauci their only attempt on target.

In fact, the hosts looked more like scoring, as Josh Keeley saved brilliantly from Jayden Stockley and Martin Sherif, which led to Wilshere being asked during his post match press conference if he felt his players were simply not good enough to carry out what he is asking of them. Responding to the query, he said: “No, the players for me are good enough, definitely. I just think it’s the belief thing and I know people will probably get bored of hearing it, but that’s the reality, that’s the reality of where we’re at and we have to try somehow to get out of it.

"The positive is, we lost six in a row away from home before this, we didn’t lose today, which when you’re really reaching for a positive, that’s what it is. But we have to keep going like that and keep finding little positives and little moments that gives us more belief and more confidence. We can’t do it consistently I would say and I don’t know why. We have to keep going, keep pushing the players, keep putting them under pressure to do it and show them the right way to do it and give them the freedom to do it.

"I still feel like there’s a lack of belief and a lack of confidence when that happens, it gets tough and we can’t quite find that right pass or right moment to change the rhythm. Then you get Shayden (Morris) on and you know what Shayden’s going to do, he’s going to get to the byline and stand it up and we haven’t got enough numbers in the box, that’s the reality.”

With just under 1,200 supporters making their way to Stoke-on-Trent despite Town’s atrocious form on the road, those supporters were growing more and more angry as the second half wore on, with constant shouts of ‘forward’ as Luton often went sideways and backwards, especially when the visitors continually went short with their goal kicks as well, one during stoppage time quickly ending back at the feet of Keeley once more.

It saw the Hatters’ players once more jeered at the end as they and Wilshere went over to applaud them after the full time whistle, with the manager continuing: “I completely understand their frustrations. You think about the last three games, Wigan, Burton and this game, we haven’t got enough points out of it. We haven’t got enough threat. I feel like we have had at times, but we have to keep doing it consistently. We have to recognise in the second half that we’re controlling it, but it’s not a game where we have to control it and make passes around, even in their half because you can see the pitch.

"It’s a game that we spoke about it half time, get in behind them, put balls in the box, maybe land on a second ball, but I understand their frustrations and I’ll say it again, we’re really, really trying to turn it around and pick up points. We didn’t lose, which I know is not good enough here. We want to win the game, but if we’re trying to build and reach for the play-offs, we’ve got to take the positives out of it which is we got a point.”

Although the result did see Luton actually cut the gap to the final top six berth, which is now all they can realistically aim for, with Huddersfield beaten 2-1 at home by Wigan, there are a number of teams far better positioned than them to take advantage in Reading, Wycombe Wanderers and Stevenage. On whether Luton’s result meant that hope of a route to Wembley had now ended, Wilshere added: “No, we keep believing. You see this league, Huddersfield lost to Wigan today and Reading came back in the 90th minute and scored two goals, so anything can happen.

"We’ll keep going, I don’t want to talk about that with the players, right in this moment, I believe we have to take each game as it comes. The next game is on Wednesday (Vertu Trophy against Northampton Town), a slightly different context as it’s a semi-final. Semi-finals are there just to win and it’s as simple as that and then Reading at home on the weekend which will be a big game.”