Wilshere jokes ex-Hammer is a 'nightmare' due to his finishing infatuation

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere jokingly labelled new signing Callum Marshall a ‘nightmare’ to work with due to his obsession with finishing drills, despite it paying off handsomely with a truly stunning goal against Stockport County on Tuesday night.

The summer signing from West Ham, who had netted on his last outing at Kenilworth Road, that when coming off the bench in the 2-2 draw against Notts County, went on to start the Carabao Cup defeat at Chelsea, where he impressed all with his efforts when ploughing a lone furrow upfront, and then kept his place against Mansfield Town on Sunday.

A hefty 5-2 loss at the One Call Stadium saw changes made by Wilshere for the midweek clash against the division’s other Hatters, with Nahki Wells preferred upfront, but after the experienced forward had opened the scoring early in the second with his fifth of the campaign already, Wilshere brought on Marshall and Jake Richards for Wells and new loan signing Dan Gore with 65 minutes on the clock.

It only took Marshall a tad over 10 minutes to make his mark on proceedings too and give the Hatters some real breathing space, as a high clearance was pumped upfield by Josh Keeley, which saw Marshall fight for it, the forward getting it back after a pass from Jamie Donley. He took a touch to open the space up in front of him, and with just one thing on his mind, executed it to perfection, hammering a brilliant effort that curved away from the full length dive of the on-loan Manchester City stopper Ollie Whatmuff and exploded into the top corner, as the home fans erupted.

Marshall almost added another in stoppage time, twisting and turning past a visiting defender only to be denied by Whatmuff on his right foot this time, but the level of quality he displayed came as no shock to Wilshere who declared the ex-West Ham youngster, who was prolific at youth level for the Hammers, is almost infatuated with honing his talents at the training ground.

He said: “Honestly, no surprises, he’s a nightmare. He’s a nightmare for the sports scientists, for me, the sports scientists are on me, saying ‘get him in.’ I say, ‘come on Cal you've got to go,’ but he’s like ‘no, 10 more, 10 more.’ It’s every single day. He’s an example to young players who need to work on their craft, especially a number nine as that’s the hardest thing to do in football, put the ball in the back of the net from different situations, from different positions.

"He practices, practices, practices and I’ve said it before, he’s one of the cleanest strikers of the ball I’ve ever seen, and there’ll probably be a few more of them. He knew it, he was off celebrating. He’s in that situation 20 times after training, he’s doing one v ones and he's finishing with his right foot. The one on his right foot at the end was a really good save from the goalie, but I thought that was going to go in."

For Marshall himself, the Northern Ireland international, who was prolific for the Hammers at youth level after making the move from Linfield, felt it made complete sense to putting the work in at the Brache, adding: “Every day, a few of the coaches have said it to me as well, but I’m not surprised my type of goals, that’s what I practice every day, that’s my craft.

"When I was at West Ham academy, we’d call it our super strengths, the thing that's got me to my career in the first place is my shooting, so I’m not going stop trying to make it better and try and score goals when I can. I’m a striker, and a few of my coaches in the past have played me in different positions, but I’ve known that my career will be as a number nine, because I know where the net is.

"I can touch it out of my feet and shoot, that's my best asset, more my left foot than my right, but I was happy the other week when it was with my right. It was one of those, I do it most days in training, I don't even think I looked at the net, it was just touch it out of my feet and I knew if I hit it right, it was going to go in. I ran away, I didn't even really see it go into the net, I know if I get it out of my feet that's what I can do.”