5 things we learned from Wigan 1 Luton 2 in the FA Cup

The Hatters set up an FA Cup fourth-round meeting with Grimsby Town when they saw off Wigan Athletic 2-1 in the third-round replay at the DW Stadium on Tuesday evening. Here are our takeaways from the match.

Captain Clark continues to show his class

As ever when a cup tie comes along the first thing supporters do is check out the starting XI to see how strong it is and, with it, how seriously those involved are taking the game.

When the sheet came out for the replay in Lancashire there was a surprise choice of captain in the form of midfielder Jordan Clark, with both Dan Potts and Tom Lockyer spending the evening on the bench.

We know Clark is a wonderful footballer who gets about the pitch well and does so much so well. He might not come across as a natural captain in terms of being a shouter and an organiser that the role was built for back in the day, but as someone who can lead by example he certainly ticks that box. The captaincy for the evening was great recognition for a man who has been and continues to be a brilliant servant for the club.

Wonderful Woodrow getting back to his best

The return of Cauley Woodrow to Kenilworth Road has been something of a stop-start affair so far, although that is largely down to an injury the attacker has had to endure in the opening half of the season, rather than anything to do with the ability of the former Hatters youth graduate. Slowly but surely though he is getting up to full speed and this was evident at the DW Stadium.

Although his game time hasn’t been at the level he would have liked this term, Woodrow has been more involved under Rob Edwards and has already delivered a winning goal against Norwich in the league and here he put in an excellent performance.

Woodrow is a good player. He has a first touch that so many at second tier level can only dream of and showed it with his goal which levelled the replay, controlling Allan Campbell’s cross before thumping a strike at goal which Ben Amos saved, but there was no keeping out the rebound despite the efforts of Jack Whatmough on the line.

The only surprise on the evening was that two earlier chances that fell to Woodrow went begging, such is the quality of his finishing, but he put home the one which counted which led to his manager describing him as a “brilliant footballer”. On this evidence, he is not wrong.

Electric Elijah saves the day!

There is no hiding the fact that the defeat to West Brom on Saturday was a disappointing one, especially as Luton had held a 2-0 lead in the game, but if there was any positives to draw from the loss it was that Elijah Adebayo was back on the scoresheet and the leading marksman of last season clearly took a lot of confidence from that.

Adebayo played well on Saturday and he did likewise in Wigan. The immediately obvious thing about him in recent games is he is showing a lot more upper strength and a physicality to him which could make him a real handful.

That was evident in the winning goal when all inside the DW Stadium were coming to terms with the prospect of another 30 minutes as the game ticked into an eighth minute of injury time.

A cross from substitute Harry Cornick saw a home defender try to outmuscle Adebayo only to be left on his backside and the striker coolly fired the Town into the fourth round.

Should the injury, which kept Carlton Morris out of the replay, also rule him out of the return to Wigan on Saturday, the increased confidence in the 25-year-old could be huge.

Horvath handles Saturday’s disappointment positively

Some managers would have taken goalkeeper Ethan Horvath out of the spotlight after a pair of errors cost the Town so dearly in the 3-2 loss to West Brom on Saturday afternoon – but Rob Edwards wasn’t one of them.

Instead he put the American international into the XI at Wigan, maybe if not to right the wrong, to show people that he can be a good goalkeeper at this level.

The Hatters’ boss wasn’t let down for his decision either. This wasn’t the toughest encounter the American will face in his career, but with more of a spotlight on him it was important for him to handle everything that came his way, and he did that.

He had no chance with a top class strike for the Wigan goal but his handling for everything else that came his way was solid enough and his decision-making was good too. Hopefully, this performance will give him the confidence to shrug off last Saturday’s negatives and keep Luton’s opponents at bay.

Familiar foes go again on Saturday

One of the worst things about the FA Cup draw was the knowledge that there was a Championship game between the two this coming Saturday. As it turned out that will be the third meeting between the two clubs in two weeks and so they will know each other pretty well.

We’ll leave the tactical nuances to the Town boss to work out but I would imagine the one thing he’ll know either in the back of his mind, or perhaps at the forefront of it after the two cup ties, is that if his side can get the first goal it will make things so much easier.

Luton have shown in both cup games that they can come from behind to get a result but while Wigan aren’t good at too much technically, they are world-class operators when it comes to time-wasting or ‘game management’ as that annoying term describes it.

If the Hatters can get in front on Saturday that will nip shenanigans such as that in the bud and you would imagine the class of the Luton players will shine through.