Wilshere not sure transfer window will solve lingering issues at Kenilworth Road

Luton boss Jack Wilshere insists there are a number of issues still lingering at Kenilworth Road from the club’s Premier League relegation which won’t necessarily be fixed by a successful transfer window.

Two years ago this Friday, the Hatters were enjoying a sensational 4-0 top flight victory over Brighton & Hove Albion, which saw Town move out of the drop zone, and then going on to pick up another point in a brilliantly entertaining 4-4 draw at Newcastle United, to give them a realistic chance of survival in the top echelon of English football. However, that was to prove to be the high point as, with a lack of serious investment in the window, an injury-ravaged squad went on to suffer 12 defeats from their next 16 games, picking up one win to finish third bottom in the table.

Their misery was further compounded when suffering a second successive relegation when also ending up below the dotted line in the Championship last year, which meant that for the first time since the 2018-19 campaign, Town were back in the third tier of English football once more. Luton’s plummet saw both Rob Edwards and Matt Bloomfield lose their jobs, as although Wilshere, who was appointed in October, has sorted out the home form, it has been a huge struggle on the road, losing a fifth match from six at Huddersfield Town last night, unable to defeat a side who had 10 men for over an hour.

With Town's record on their travels since dropping into the Championship now reading as eight wins, five draws and 24 defeats from 37 matches, scoring 36 goals but conceding a massive 68, at an average of just under two a game, then answering a question about whether new signings would help change the club’s fortunes before the window closes on Monday evening, Wilshere revealed he feels the problems lie somewhat deeper, saying: “I think there is an opportunity (to sign players), there is a chance, but I don’t think bringing one player in is going to solve everything.

"There’s issues that we have to look at that we have to try and solve within this group, within this culture, within the whole place and you can bring one, two players in, but we need to change a lot of things. Naturally when you go on a journey that the club has been on, all the way to the Premier League, it goes well, we win games, we have big games at the Kenny and the fans remember that and then that changes pretty quickly.

"We have a lot of players in the team that have been on that journey and that’s not a good thing to get used to losing, that’s hard to change as well. You have to constantly try and make the players believe, constantly try and find ways to get that winning mentality back, get the players used to winning. It feels like we’re not too far away, I know that it feels like we’re a million miles away tonight, but actually since I’ve been in, it feels like we have made steps. We’ve climbed the ladder a little bit more, but it seems like when we do get close to it and we start to believe, we then fall a little bit short, that’s a mentality thing and we have to change that.”

Although Town have lost the likes of Carlton Morris, Tom Lockyer and Ross Barkley along the way, plus a number of other big personalities at the club, then on whether he felt leadership was the issue as to why Town can’t seem to turn around this depressing slide to a mid-table mediocrity in League One, Wilshere continued: “I don’t think the problem is a leadership problem, especially in the playing group.

"The players are leaders, as football’s different now to when I played, demanding a different type of leader. In my mind we do have a leader like that in Kal (Naismith). Kal is that guy, so I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s a quality thing. You can see that in the final moment we don’t trust ourselves enough to risk the ball in the final third which you have to do so I wouldn’t say it’s a leadership problem.”

One major issue for the Hatters is that the moment they concede on the road, then all hopes of a victory are seemingly out of the window as well, as since being in the Premier League, they have won just three matches when being breached, two of them in the top flight against Everton and Sheffield United, along with a 2-1 success at Cardiff City last season.

On whether he thinks his players’ heads drop when the home side are able to hit the back of the net, particularly to break the deadlock, as it happened once more at the Accu Stadium on Tuesday night, Ryan Ledson scoring an out of the world strike from just inside his own half which ensured the Terriers took all three points, Wilshere said: “I knew that coming in, the first goal is very important in this league. Normally you go on to win the game and I think you can see the mentality change at home.

"The amount of times we’ve come back, I think about games when we weren’t good enough, Port Vale for example when we went 1-0 up, they then came back, 2-1, we found a way to get back and I’ve sat here many times and praised the players for their character in that. So I’m not sure that going a goal behind necessarily we lose that focus or we lose that belief, because we have had moments where we’ve come back but we need to be more consistent with it.”

Worryingly for Luton as well, was that despite having a man extra against Huddersfield for over an hour, then it was still the hosts who carried the most goal threat in the second period, Radinio Balker putting two headers over from dangerous set-pieces. At the other end, Luton’s nine corners amounted to virtually nothing, as Wilshere added: “I don’t think they accept it as the amount of energy and effort that I, the coaches, Kevin Pilkington (head of goalkeeping) puts into set-pieces.

"We constantly show them that and if we don’t think it’s good enough then it’s not good enough. I agree that there were too many first contacts today and our attacking set-plays, that’s a big moment, especially against a block. If you work the ball up and win a corner you have to be able to then get first contact and not let the keeper catch the ball and it wasn’t good enough tonight.”