Wilshere states returning Town midfielder is in the 'best' shape he has ever seen him
Clark up and running with double at Hitchin Town
Hatters boss Jack Wilshere stated that popular midfielder Jordan Clark has come back in the ‘best’ shape he has ever seen him following his impressive goalscoring display during Saturday’s 5-0 friendly victory at Hitchin Town.
The 32-year-old ended last term as the club’s leading scorer, on target 13 times in 41 outings, enjoying easily the most prolific campaign of his 15-year career. Following the 3-2 final day victory at Bolton Wanderers, several Luton fans were worried it might be the last time they saw Clark in a Town shirt, as with his contract ending in the summer, there were genuine concerns he would end his six year stint in Bedfordshire and search for pastures news.
Thankfully those were quickly put to rest as the former Barnsley and Accrington player agreed to sign a new long-term contract last month, and with Town returning to pre-season activities on Saturday, it looked like he had never been away at Top Field, when named in the Luton XI for the first half, he timed his run perfectly to meet Liam Walsh’s free kick with a stooping header to break the deadlock.
Clark then doubled the advantage in excellent fashion later in the half, collecting a pass from Gideon Kodua and curving a brilliant shot into the net via the inside of the post to double both his and Town’s tally for the afternoon. Asked how he felt the midfielder, who has played 220 times for Luton, with 31 goals, did in his first run-out, Wilshere said: “He’s come back in my opinion the best I’ve ever seen him physically. He didn’t need to, but he looks like he’s leaner, he’s hungry in training, you can see he’s hungry to score goals as well.”
The midfielder’s performance clearly impressed new signing Harrison Ashby as well, as the on-loan Newcastle United full back, who played hte opening 45 minutes, said: “When you’ve got a player like him in your team, it’s always nice to have, as you know you can give him the ball, you can wrap it into his kneecap and he’ll take it down and do something with it. So it’s always a pleasure to play with someone like that.”
Although Clark didn’t reappear for the second period, with Wilshere changing his entire XI, it saw Nahki Wells, Kasey Palmer and Christian Chigozie all find the net with headers, as Town were on target three times from free kicks overall, something that delighted Wilshere after their build-up to the contest.
He continued: “You don’t necessarily look at the scorelines, of course you want to win, but it’s more you’re looking at things you’re trying to work on throughout the week in pre-season and one of them was set-pieces, so that was nice. A difficult pitch at times, it was a bit dry, but we controlled most of it. We expected to and we just asked the boys to keep that pressure on in the final third, don't let the opposition counter on us and I think we did that well, a good first start.
“With different personnel, the structure changed a little bit in the second half, which they needed to adapt to a little bit. Izzy (Jones) getting higher and Jake (Richards) coming off the line, but I thought they did it well. We had two different types of midfield, first half we had Walshy (Liam Walsh) in there on his own, second half we had Savs (George Saville) and Sverre (Sandal), so the dynamic of the whole structure is a little bit different. But same control, nice to score a few more goals, a good day.”