Gideon Kodua’s late winner saw Luton survive an FA Cup Halloween fright night in a seven-goal thriller against non-league Forest Green Rovers as manager Jack Wilshere admitted that sometimes you “have to suffer.”
The substitute struck two minutes into added time after the Hatters had thrown away a three-goal lead from a position of absolute comfort.
“[That’s] tough to analyse,” Hatters boss Wilshere said after the rollercoaster contest, adding: “But what I would say is three wins in a week. It’s important for the players.
“It’s been a while since they’ve done that and it’s important that we keep winning and, yes, we have to look at certain things, but we found a way in the end.
“I’ve just spoke about it after Mansfield, there’s times in football where you have to suffer. You have to suffer and you really see then what people are about and what we are about. And ultimately in the end we won the game, which I’m happy about. yeah, but it’s hard to analyse.”
At the hour mark it would have been an easy task. Nahki Wells scored his second tap-in of the night on 53 minutes, after Lamine Fanne’s opener, the Hatters looked home and hosed.
But the dominance of the first hour turned to desperation and calamity all of their own making. Wounds only recently closed, after two encouraging victories, opened up again. Fragilities exposed.
Half time substitute Tom Knowles’ goal, which took a deceiving nick of Teden Mengi’s head on 61 minutes, should have been a consolation, but seven minutes later the defender bundled over Harry Whitwell and Kyle McAllister converted in from the spot.
Cue panic. Rovers had barely laid a glove on Luton until then, but then, suddenly, a luminous green tide crashed relentlessly at Town’s increasingly porous defences.
And when Aidan Dausch thumped home in front of the travelling Forest Green fans on 79 minutes, the giant-killing was very much on. But for the crossbar, it would’ve been complete when skipper Laurent Mendy got his head on a free-kick. With almost double the amount of touches in Town’s box (27 to Luton’s 15), 16 shots rained down on Josh Keeley’s goal and though only five found the target that was more than enough.
But somehow, after six added minutes were flashed on the fourth official’s board, Luton fashioned a rare second half attack where Yates played into the path of an emphatic Kodua thump past Fiachra Pagel in the Rovers goal, who’d been at fault for Wells’ first.
Robbie Savage in the away dugout slumped down as, not for the first occasion in stoppage time this term, Luton’s West Ham loanee has come up trumps.
But still the drama was not over. Town were at sixes and sevens again in their own box and Dausch was left all alone, yards from goal, but he fluffed his lines and scuffed wide.
A thriller? Yes. But one with far more reoccurring nightmares than were necessary from Luton. It maintained a record held since 1977 that they have not lost first round FA Cup tie at Kenilworth Road.
More importantly for Wilshere, his revival of the Hatters stumbled but stood up.
That’s a hat-trick of victories in three different competitions for the rookie boss. The last time Town managed that was in April when nine points set them up for the Championship great escape, only to blow it on the final day at West Brom.
So, if there are omens to be had here, where they’ve scraped a rare result in the final test of a three-game week, it could be that the Hatters have finally endured.
There’s still much work to be done, but at least Luton are in the hat for the second round of the FA Cup. Banana skin avoided. Just.
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