Luton boss Jack Wilshere has admitted that playing away from Kenilworth Road suits his side more at the moment, as they head to Oakwell tomorrow expecting to face a Barnsley side not solely focused on shutting out the Hatters.
That was the stifling experience against Rotherham’s resolute low block last weekend, but Barnsley’s stomping ground has been a happy one for the Hatters. They’ve won six of their eight away league games this century, winning 1-0 on each of their last two visits to face the Tykes.
Though suffering a disappointing stalemate last Saturday, the point against Rotherham did stretch Luton’s unbeaten record to five games in all competitions.
But as two of the four victories in that run came in cup competitions Wilshere also wants to turn that steady form into something more substantial in League One, where they currently sit in eighth place, three points from the play-offs.
“I think what we’ve done up to now is put ourselves in a position where we can now push on and we have to. We’re five unbeaten but only three of them are in the league. We know that and we want to keep that run going in the league.
“We want to build a little bit more momentum in the league and we’ll start with tomorrow and we know that probably going away from home suits us a little bit at the moment, so we’re excited when we’re ready for it.
“I said to the players today, they’re good and they like to play football in the right way, in my opinion, but we’re still going there with the intention that we want to win this game.
“Even the point last week – yeah, we wanted three points and we wanted to win and I think we should win games like that, but we took the point in the league and we have to see that as a positive because anything can happen.
“There’s teams behind us [in the league] that have played less games, there’s teams in front of us that have played less games and we just need to make sure we’re doing the things we can do right, control what we can control and look to try and win every game.”
Wilshere expects a very different challenge to Rotherham’s rearguard, arguing that Barnsley’s approach under his opposite number Conor Hourihane could provide a more open contest, in which Luton can thrive. He also wants his players to convert their dominance into something more threatening in the final third after misfiring and dropping points last weekend.
“I think there will be occasions when we go away from home and face that [low block] as well, just because of the way we want to play and the quality of players we have, but I expect tomorrow to be more of an open game,” he said.
“I know how Barnsley play, I really like the way they play, actually. So yeah, I think we have to get better at playing against low blocks. We know that. We had a good week actually where we spoke about that on Monday. It’s frustrating when you have that much control in a game and when you analyse it back and you look at things that we could have done better, there wasn’t that much.
“We needed probably a little bit more quality in the final third or a little bit more of a threat behind. But when we spoke about that, they then started to do that. So yeah, there’s things we can look at, but we definitely need to get better at that.”
Wilshere praised his opposite number too, drawing on a brief past connection with Hourihane, having played against him and once have a phone call with the Barnsley boss.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for him,” Wilshere said, adding: “. “I think he was a top player, first of all. But as I said before, I like the way their team plays, like they play under pressure, they want to build up.
“They also have a little bit of a threat behind, which we need to be ready for. [He’s] also a young coach who’s given an opportunity in the game and yeah, I hope he does well, just not tomorrow.”
That threat includes the evergreen Tykes striker David McGoldrick, who Wilshere believes remains pivotal.
“I said it before about older players being inspiring to me and he definitely is. He’s 37 and I’ve watched a lot of them this week and he’s key to what they do with his intelligence. He almost has a free role where he can move around. But then we also know the threat of [Davis] Keillor-Dunn,” he said.
“So yeah, they’ve got good players and especially in attacking areas and they play the game with the ball in the right way, in my opinion, and they try and find spaces, they try and play through you and it’ll be a different test to us.
“I’ve spoken about this league being a lot where if you get the press right then teams start to play longer and then you have to win second balls.
“It’ll probably be a slightly different game, which will test us a little bit more tactically without the ball, but we still want to have the same front foot mentality and be aggressive and win the ball back high when we can.”
Be the first to comment