Jack Wilshere admitted he has “learned a lot the last few days” after Luton Town ended their fan fury-inducing three-game winless run with a 2-1 victory over Plymouth last night to book a Vertu Trophy semi-final at Kenilworth Road.
Jordan Clark’s late penalty sealed the win and kept alive hopes of a Wembley trip, but for Wilshere this was about more than progression in the competition. It was about belief, response and rediscovering identity after a difficult weekend, where a late Burton leveller in the league led to fan fury and confrontations that turned Town toxic.
“I took some really big lessons out the last few days about myself, about the team, about the club, about everything,” he said.
“We responded really well. Now it’s about, again, how we respond and that’s the job. The game that we’re in is 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 and we look like we want to win a game.
“I spoke a lot about the belief and confidence and I felt that’s a big step tonight.”
Talking about how he managed the moments after the Burton game on Saturday and the days between last night’s victory, Wilshere added: “The way I manage and the way I coach is to try and support the players. Of course, we have to get the right amount of challenge to them, accountability to them, but it’s a really good group that take accountability, that take responsibility.
“That was the way I went about it. I spoke to them after the game straight away and said, ‘boys it hurts. I know it hurts. Let’s review it. Let’s make sure we stick together, just make sure that 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 forward and how we get the message across about the game.
“That we take the learning from that, but also [there’s] a quick turnaround and an opportunity to go into a semi-final.”
While Wilshere said there wasn’t one particular moment that informed his next moves after the weekend’s defeat, he said: “When you lose some 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 we just try and stay the same. We try and keep the same process. We try and review the game, 24, 48 hours later, depending on the schedule when the next game is.
“And I think that’s important because you take a little bit of emotion out of it and you can be calm, you can be objective, you can talk to the players [talk a bout] what we did well, what we didn’t do well.
“There’s always, of course, some honest conversations. The goal we conceded the other day, it wasn’t good enough. So you have to stand up in their 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 [Burton] entered our box 30 times or 32 times something like that. And we defended really, really well.
“So you have to also capture them moments and try and build off that. I think when you play against teams that have long throws, that have long set plays, again a little bit like tonight and what you’re going to face a lot in this league, you have to highlight them moments because that’s important.
“We have to stay focused and in the game for 90, 95 minutes, however long it is. That was the message we took away from it. And the other part was we wanted to be better on the ball in the second half. We wanted to try and get the second goal, which we didn’t do, and so we reviewed it that way.
“Before the game today, spoke about how we’re going to try and attempt to 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, to defend our box. But we were better with the ball tonight. We found more rhythm, we play with more purpose, more intent. And that’s how we’ll go forward.”
Luton were dominant in the first half against Plymouth and Wilshere was pleased his side resisted the urge to retreat, as they did against Burton, after going ahead thanks to Isaiah Jones’ 16th minute strike.
“We spoke about that at half time about we don’t want to hold on to the lead,” he said. “We were the best team in the first half, in my opinion. We were dominating. We were on the front foot, we played with real purpose and we wanted to continue that.
“Probably we didn’t do it as much as we wanted to and we allowed them back into the game, but the improvement from the weekend in the second half was there to be seen and we have to keep building on that.”
Having been reinstated to the competition despite defeat in the last round to Swindon, because the Robins fielded two ineligible players, the Hatters insisted that the EFL Trophy competition has always been taken seriously this , even when earlier rounds saw heavy rotation.
“We are serious in this competition,” he said. “Before every game we had in this competition we always spoke about Wembley and what that means and what that feels like and how important it is to get there.
“We spoke before the game about an opportunity for a semi-final at Kenilworth Road with the opportunity to go to Wembley. That was a big inspiration for us and credit to the players.”
Town will take on Northampton next Wednesday for a place in the showpiece at the national stadium and they were set on their way to home clash against the Cobblers by Jones’ back-post finish, which reflected work done on the training ground.
“We speak about doing the basics really well, especially when things are hard and a basic for a winger is making sure you lock in the back post and Izzy was there,” Wilshere said. “Good finish. Maybe he could have had two more as well from that position, but he was there, which is the most important thing.”
After Tegan Finn levelled for Plymouth in the 77th minute thanks to an error, Clark’s decisive penalty continued his redemption arc after an earlier spot-kick miss in the season.
“I remember sitting here [media press conference] and they were asking me the question about Clicks and his penalties and I said at that time he’ll take another penalty for us, an important penalty for us, and he’ll score,” Wilshere said. “I think he’s done two since then.
“You need a big player in those moments who’s confident and who takes responsibility and Clicks has done that so much for us this season. He’s important for us. We need him.”
Nahki Wells’ late surge to win the spot-kick also caught his manager’s eye.
“I thought Nahki was excellent and worked really hard all night and then to run away from someone in the final few minutes, it’s credit to him and how he looks after himself and prepares,” Wilshere said. “He’s older than me as well, so that’s not easy for him.”
There were concerns over injuries to Teden Mengi, Mads Andersen and Gideon Kodua, although Wilshere hopes the latter two are impact issues, with a foot and a hip respectively, rather than muscular issues.
“Obviously it doesn’t look good when it happens like that, but let’s wait and see,” he said on Mengi’s issue, adding: “If it’s muscular, you have to probably wait 24, 48 hours to give it the best chance before you look at it or scan it, or whatever it is. That’s probably one of the disappointing things from tonight.
Perhaps most tellingly, Wilshere emphasised unity after recent turbulence.
“This is a moment where we all have to stick together,” he said. “You can clearly see how committed and how together the players and the staff are and we need everyone to be in.
“It’s nice when it’s like that. I know it’s not always going to be like that and I know there’ll be some difficult moments, but my message is still the same. Stick with us. We’re giving everything.”
For now, Luton have a semi-final to look forward to and a tangible sign that some success can still be sought from the season, though play-off hopes have taken a serious hit over the last week. As Wilshere put it, the task is simple but demanding.
“We can do things better as well and we’ll take them learnings. But we have to build on this.”
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