Wilshere left with nothing but pride despite Town falling short in top six bid

Luton boss Jack Wilshere insisted he was incredibly proud of his players despite Town ultimately falling short of the play-offs when beating Bolton Wanderers 3-2 this afternoon.

The Hatters headed to the Toughsheet Stadium knowing that nothing but a win would do if they realistically wanted to reach the top six, which they managed thanks to Jordan Clark’s penalty, plus second half goals from Hakeem Odoffin and Shayden Morris. Unfortunately for the visitors, Morris’s stoppage time winner came just seconds after Stevenage had taken the lead against Wigan Athletic, as with both Bradford and Stockport also winning, it meant Town’s efforts wouldn’t be enough to finish above the dotted line.

Speaking afterwards, Wilshere said: “I’m really, really proud of every single player in that dressing room and the players that didn’t make the squad, because they’re the guys who put us in this position to come here and win. That takes a lot to do that, and I’ve said that all along, there’s times where people have questioned that and questioned me, sticking with the players and saying we’ve got the leaders, saying we’ve got resilience, saying we’ve got character.

"I saw it every single day. At times it was difficult to show as we couldn’t cope with certain moments on the pitch, but it was always there. We had to turn it around slowly, slowly and that’s credit to the players, so really proud of them.”

With Luton trailing 2-1 on the hour mark, then the fact they managed to hit back and beat a side who had only lost one game on home soil all term was even more impressive for Wilshere, who continued: “That’s one of the biggest things we’ve developed that I’m really proud of as I said that so many times, football is a beautiful game and yes we want the ball and we want to hurt the opposition and want to attack, but that’s not the reality of this level of football, or any level.

"You have to be able to suffer, you have to be able to dig in, have to be able to run, have to make sure you’re winning your individual battles and I thought in the first half we gave them two goals in my opinion. A set-piece, second phase where we switched off and then we gave the ball away, but apart from that we defended really well against a good team with good players who can hurt you, so really proud of that and you always felt we’ve got something in us to produce something and we did.”

Although Morris was the beneficiary, tapping home from a yard or so out, Wilshere confirmed that he and the coaching staff already knew it wouldn’t really matter due to what had happened in Hertfordshire, adding: “Yes, we’d heard. We were always hoping, we wanted to put ourselves in a possible position where Wigan could go a nick a goal, so we did all we could.”