Wilshere tells summer signing to show he's the best player in League One

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere has told midfielder Kasey Palmer to go out and show he is the best in class by winning the League One Player of the Season award this term.

The 29-year-old was one of Town’s main acquisitions in the summer, as to the delight of every Luton supporter, he turned what was a quite glorious loan spell at Kenilworth Road into a permanent one when heading to Bedfordshire for an undisclosed fee from Hull City. With a full pre-season behind him, Palmer was then named on the bench at Gillingham in the Carabao Cup last weekend, coming on early in the second half, before the Jamaican international was brought into the starting line-up against the Royals.

He couldn’t prevent the visitors falling 3-1 behind at half time, at fault for the hosts’ second goal when losing possession inside his own half, Jack Marriott freed to double his tally for the afternoon from range. Although the ex-Luton striker then completed his hat-trick by the interval, giving Town a mountain to climb, Palmer demonstrated immediately just why Wilshere were so determined to bring him in.

When Jake Richards’ deep free kick was headed out, Palmer met it 16 yards from goal, volleying a snapshot into the turf and then the roof of the net on 50 minutes to halve the deficit. A mere two minutes later and he was at it again, sliding home a wonderful team move to make it 3-3, allowing the visitors to go on and claim all three points thanks to Gideon Kodua’s dramatic injury-time winner.

On Palmer’s efforts, Wilshere said: “He’s a big player and I said to him before the game, ‘go on then, go and get League One Player of the Season’, as he definitely has the ability to do that and he showed that in the second half. That’s why the fans love him, that’s why his team-mates love him and that’s why as coaches he frustrates you at times, but he’s got magic and I’m happy for him.”

Palmer’s second goal came after a fantastic team move that was started by Jordan Clark’s flick through to Richards. Town’s opening goalscorer on the afternoon then played a fantastic reverse pass to Nahki Wells, who had just about stayed onside in the assistant’s view, as he bore down on Royals keeper Joel Pereira. Rather than go for goal himself, the experienced striker played it to his left instead, where the unmarked Palmer was able to slide in and beat the scrambling stopper to make it 3-3.

It continued the Jamaican international’s prolific goalscoring form from last season too, making it 10 goals in his last 12 League One tier outings now, as on the build-up, Wilshere continued: “We score goals like that every day in training, so that’s why we do it. We’re not doing it just to keep the ball and have some fun, and look good, we’re doing it to have purpose, to attack and we’re moving Clicker into that position to then get in behind them. That was a top goal. It was Nahki who played it across as well, that was a top moment as he’s in front of goal, sees his mate in a better place and a good goal.”

It was certainly something that impressed Naismith, who discussing the goal and Wilshere’s messaging at the half time interval, said: “It was just positive. We’ve been here before, we’ve been down in games and we’ve always come back. We weren’t at our level, we were nowhere near our level on the ball. You see what we were trying to do, our structure was there, we were just making too many little mistakes, so that’s disappointing, but the positive thing is we're nowhere near our levels so we know we’ve got gears to go through.

“The gaffer actually said we can score two goals in 10 minutes easily here. We’re a really good team and we went and did it against a really good Reading side. No-one will come here and dominate possession the way we did, you can see they’re a good side, coached really well. They were trying to sit in a block and press at the right times and we were really, really patient with it. "We tried to find Walshy (Liam Walsh) and tried to find the pockets and get forward. We did it in the first half, but we just didn’t really capitalise on those situations, but some of the play in the second half, Kasey’s second goal, Clicker, round the corner, it was beautiful to watch.”

Finally, Palmer himself thought the victory ensured Luton made something of a ‘statement’ when hitting back in the manner they did to earn an opening day victory. Speaking on the pitch, the summer signing said: “Football's back! It just feels like we're back. Three-one down at half time, we said in the dressing room the game's not done, so I think it shows the belief in the group that we feel like we can do it this year, and to make a statement, 3-1 down to win 4-3 is a big thing.

“After I gave away their second goal, I was thinking I’ve got to do something and to score two second half, bring it back to 3-3, for Gids to give that moment at the end is special. They’re (Luton fans) a big part of why I’m here, why I came back in the summer. Obviously I believe in the team, believe in the squad, but the fans played a big part so to deliver that on the first day is special.”