Wilshere reveals experienced Luton striker could be fit to feature in final
Wells’ injury isn’t as bad as first feared
Luton boss Jack Wilshere will make a late decision over what whether Nahki Wells will be able to play for Town in the Vertu Trophy final against Stockport County on Sunday.
The 35-year-old began the Hatters’ 3-0 League One success at AFC Wimbledon on Easter Monday, but after missing a glorious chance to break the deadlock early on from Kasey Palmer’s inch-perfect pass, he was then withdrawn with 16 minutes gone due to a groin issue. Speaking to the Royal Gazette, the Bermuda international has declared he was confident of being fit to take on County, but Wilshere will leave it until Saturday before deciding if he does play or not.
Speaking this afternoon, the manager said: “Nahki felt something before the game and he was adamant that he wanted to give it a go and try, bu he then obviously couldn’t after 15 minutes. It wasn’t as bad as we expected, he hasn’t trained much this week, so we’ll have to make a decision around him tomorrow, but potentially he could be available.”
One thing that Wilshere doesn’t want to do is start the ex-Bradford City and Huddersfield attacker, who has won twice at the home of English football before and then see the injury reoccur which could hinder Town’s attempts to win the final, plus his ability to figure in the play-off push as well. He continued: “We’ll weigh that up. I’ll speak to Chris (Phillips, head of physiotherapy) and the guys about that, what they think, how long they think he can get through. It might be one where he’s on the bench and then comes on, we’ll have to make that decision tomorrow.”
If Wells doesn’t make it, then on-loan Ipswich forward Ali Al-Hamadi will no doubt get the nod ahead of Devante Cole to lead the line, having been picked above the January signing at the Cherry Red Records Stadium a few days ago, scoring his first Luton goal with an excellent clipped finish from Jake Richards’ perfectly weighted pass.
Wilshere said: “I was really happy for Ali as I said after the game, it’s not always gone his way this season. Some things are out of his control, when he came he was injured and then he picked up an unfortunate injury and he’s a player that I see needs a little bit of rhythm, needs a little bit of confidence.
"Stepping out of the environment, going away with Iraq, having a real bit of success and taking his country to a World Cup, while scoring a goal has given him a real big confidence step and I think he needed that. To come on on Monday and score, I thought he grew into the game, a lot of the stuff in the game I liked. There’s some things he can improve, of course, but he’s a goalscorer and we haven’t seen that this season, but hopefully we can see it now.”
Although Wells is a doubt, there are no other real issues for the Hatters, with Mads Andersen back from a five-game absence to get through 90 minutes in south London on Monday, as Wilshere said: “Yes, strangely, Wembley’s here and everyone’s fit and available to play! Mads came through okay. I think Mads is someone we’ve done a really good job this season of maximising his availability. Of course against Plymouth he picked up a knock which we couldn’t control, but we now need to get him back in the rhythm that we had him in, so he’s okay.”
Meanwhile wingback Cohen Bramall was also back on the bench for the clash with the Dons for the first time since the 1-1 draw at Doncaster Rovers around a month earlier. Asked if there had been any issues that led to his lengthy absence from the match-day squad, Wilshere added: “It was just selection. I’d been having conversations with him and I’ll go back to it, when you can only have six outfield players on the bench it’s really hard to bring on another winger.
"Shayden’s (Morris) been in the squad a lot and come on and influenced the games, so he was kind of the guy we were bringing on. We felt like it was a good time to bring Cohen back into the squad we saw some things on Wimbledon’s right side that Cohen could help us with. So it was just a selection thing and I’ve got decisions to make around that tomorrow.”