Wilshere took some 'big lessons' in aftermath of Brewers fan fury

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere admitted he learned some ‘big lessons’ about himself and the team in the aftermath of Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Burton Albion in which his team suffered the wrath of the Kenilworth Road crowd.

Turning in a bitterly disappointing display in front of their own fans at the weekend, in which Town were only able to manage two shots on target, as although Nahki Wells scored one of them, the other was virtually a pass back, they tried and failed to hang on to a lead against a side battling relegation, eventually giving up a 92nd minute equaliser.

That led to some of the worst scenes faced by the home players in recent times, Luton’s fans letting them know in no uncertain terms what they felt about the display, some even booing after just 97 seconds of the contest, as with the anger intensifying after the full time whistle, both Wilshere and Kal Naismith were involved in some heated exchanges with their own supporters.

However, just 72 hours on and Town were being cheered from the field by their own fans who witnessed the kind of display that they had longed for, the hosts looking energised, attacking and also determined to put the hard work in as well, winning headers, 50/50s, and doing what it took to beat an in-form Plymouth Argyle side 2-1 to reach the Vertu Trophy semi-final thanks to goals from Izzy Jones and Jordan Clark.

Asked just how a difficult period it has been in his fledgling managerial career to date, Wilshere having been a number one in his own right for just 135 days, and what kind of lessons he has taken from it, Wilshere said: “I think that people will know but the way I manage and the way I coach is to try and support the players. Of course we have to try and get the right amount of challenge to them, accountability to them, but it’s a really good group that takes accountability, take responsibility and that was the way I went about it.

"I spoke to them after the game straight away and said I know it hurts, let’s review it, let’s make sure we stick together, make sure we keep the belief. Yes it really hurts now, but we have to keep the belief and then the next few days, with my staff, with my coaches, thinking about how we move, how we move forward. How we get the message across the game and we take the learning from that, but also a quick turnaround and opportunity to go into a semi-final. So I took some really big lessons out of the last few days, about myself, about the team, about the club, about everything and we responded really well.

"Now it’s about again how we respond and that’s the job, that’s the game that we’re in. We have to go to Port Vale with the same belief and put up the same performance where we look like we’re going to win a game, we look like we want to win a game. I spoke a lot about the belief and confidence and I felt like that’s a big step tonight and we have to build on this. We can do things better as well, we’ll take those learnings, but we have to build on this belief and confidence and look forward to a semi-final next week, but know it’s the next game. And that’s our mentality at the moment, the next game and I’ve learned a lot in the last few days.”

With performances chalk and cheese in such a short space of time, then on whether there was anything significant that happened during the brief time away at the Brache that enabled the Hatters to produce a far better display in midweek, Wilshere continued: “Not necessarily a moment, but when you’re losing games as staff, we have a lot of conversations. We sit down and we decide what way we’re going to go, what message we want the players to feel, how I want them to feel.

"Do I want them to feel that I’m angry, that I’m disappointed, whatever it is. We just try and stay the same we try and keep the same process. We review the game, 24 or 48 hours later, depending on the schedule and I think that’s important as you take a little bit of emotion out of it and you can be calm, be objective, you can talk to the players, what we did well, what we didn’t do well.

"There’s always some honest conversations like the goal we conceded the other day, it wasn’t good enough, so you have to stand up in those moments, the players have to be honest in those moments, which they are. We’ve got a really honest group, but then the other side of it, when you’re able to take the emotion out of it, I think they entered our box 32 times and we defended really, really well, so you have to also capture those moments and build off that.

"When you play against teams that have long throws, long set-plays, again a little bit like tonight and what we’re going to face a lot in this league, you have to highlight those moments as that’s important. We have to stay focused and in the game for 90, 95 minutes, however long it is and that was the message we took away from it.

"The other part was we wanted to be better on the ball in the second half if we want to try and go and get the second goal which we didn’t do. So we reviewed it that way and then before the game today, spoke about how we’re going to try and win this game. If it’s going to be a game where we can’t find our rhythm again, we have to keep the same mentality to fight, to win duels and defend our box, but we were better with the ball. Tonight, we found our rhythm, played with more purpose, more intent, and that’s how we’ll go forward.”

Speaking after the game, Argyle boss Tom Cleverley had stated his side were most definitely second best on the night, as he felt Luton did the basics far better. Having not done so anywhere near well enough against Burton a few days earlier, it was something Wilshere had clearly gone after, adding: “We talk about it a lot, I call it doing the simple things well and sometimes it’s not that simple, especially when your belief’s not there, when your confidence is not there, when things are getting on top of you.

"But I agree, I think we competed, we landed on second balls, we got our foot on second balls and made one or two passes to get out of the pressure really well and that’s what we work on a lot. This league is about that, it’s about duels, it’s about second balls and I remember my coach saying to me when I was 11 years old about earning the right and that’s what it looks like, winning duels, landing on seconds, managing regains.

"Then doing them over and over and over again until you then put the ball down and make one or two passes and bring your quality, bring your Jake Richards in, bring your Jordan Clark’s on the ball and Nahki (Wells) running behind. Without those things, without doing them, you don’t earn the right to have the ball and we haven’t done that well recently. It’s not for a lack of trying, I think it’s the belief. We allow teams to build pressure against us, they land on second balls and then they turn it into that type of game.

"We were good at that tonight and we have to look at it, review that, see the moments where we didn’t quite do it as there were some times in the second half as well when I thought we were allowing them to build pressure against us. But saying that, in this league I think you’ll always have those situations, you always have to cope with that, always have to win your duels and sometimes just kick the ball up the pitch and expect it to come back, so I thought we were good at that tonight.”