Luton defender a doubt as Wilshere warns Barnsley are ‘fighting for their life’

Jack Wilshere will “wait and see” if defender Harrison Ashby will be available for tonight’s League One clash against Barnsley, with the manager warning Luton they cannot afford to underestimate the Tykes despite the visitors arriving on an eight-game winless run and sitting in the League One relegation zone.

The Hatters are only three points above Barnsley after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at MK Dons. Both sides have similar problems to the Hatters in terms of conceding goals – they’ve both shipped 17 – but no team in the division this term creates a higher expected goals figure per 90 minutes or wins more possession in the final third that Daniel Stendel’s men.

Luton have scored 12 goals in their last five matches, but they lacked a ruthless edge in Milton Keynes where they registered 25 shots but only five on target.

Wilshere acknowledged the opportunity to bounce back quickly from Saturday’s defeat but stressed that Barnsley’s similar struggles will count for little if Luton failed to approach the game in the right way.

“We had a positive [home] result against Barnsley last season. But this is a new season. They got a new manager. They’re fighting for their lives,” he said, adding: “It’s a good opportunity, but you’re playing against a team that’s fighting for their life and fighting for everything.

“I know, and we know in this league that you can’t take anything for granted like that and you can’t look at a game like that. It’s our normal process of preparing, looking at them, what they’re going to do, or how they’re going to try and hurt us, and how can we hurt them and then making sure we do the simple things really, really well.

“It’s a good thing about this league that there’s another game and that we can bounce back from it [Dons defeat]. We shouldn’t have to because we can’t lose that game. But that’s the reality. The reality is we have. The reality is, we’re in tomorrow [Monday]. The reality is that we have to look at it and show the players it. One thing we know about this group of players is that they can bounce back and they have resilience to do that.

“So we’ll do that on Tuesday. We’ll prepare the players in the best possible way and yeah, try and get a result.”

In terms of personnel, Wilshere provided an update on Ashby, who suffered an injury in Friday’s training ahead of the Dons defeat.

He said: “Harrison Ashby hurt himself in training, which was frustrating. I felt like he’d be OK. We have to wait and see with him. I think it was his groin area when he was crossing the ball. But we have to wait and see.”

The manager confirmed that Manchester United loan midfielder Dan Gore will also remain unavailable for tonight’s test.