Jack Wilshere has admitted Luton Town’s away form “has not been good enough” and says his players must show a “different type of courage” if they are to change that narrative at League One leaders Cardiff City.
Luton have not won on the road in three months, since beating then table-toppers Stockport County, and they have only picked up one point on their travels since that victory in early November, while their last trip saw them lose to a Huddersfield side that had ten men for an hour.
To add to Town’s test, tomorrow’s opponents have only lost twice on their own turf this term, but they came back-to-back in September and since then they’ve won nine and drawn just once in the Welsh capital.
But on his side’s travels, Wilshere said: “We know that it’s not been good enough. We know that it requires something different. I’m not playing it up. We’re not playing it down. We just talk about the fact that we want to be winning games.
“Some games are at home and then some games are away, and we have to go there with the same intention to try and win a game, but understand that it’s going to be a little bit harder.
“There’s going to be moments where we’re going to have to suffer together. It’s clear for us. I don’t need to talk it up or talk it down, because we’ve got players that really understand that because there’s been a good response after that Huddersfield game when everyone was down.”
Possession has rarely been a problem under Wilshere, with Luton often commanding the lion’s share, but the manager has called for bravery with the ball, even under pressure.
“I think we have to show courage,” Wilshere said, adding: “Courage for me is is being brave, is wanting the ball is. I’ve spoken to the players about it ever since I came here.
“It was about building belief, building confidence, and part of that was that we’re going to have to show courage in tough moments. You can start to see we need to be more consistent with it. Probably that’s why Cardiff are where they are, because they are consistently dominating the ball and and making sure they’re the team that are aggressive, that are attacking.
“That’s what we’re trying to do and we’re still building towards that. The Bradford game was a really good marker for us to see how far we’ve come. Yeah, we want to have control and but we also want to have purpose. And I thought the balance was really good in that game.
“But we haven’t done that away from home for a while, so we have to show a different type of courage, but also believe in ourselves.”
In their favour, Luton have won each of their last three league games against Cardiff. Last season, they both battled unsuccessfully against relegation, but now City sit top of the table with an eight-point buffer over third placed Bolton, putting them in pole position for automatic promotion this season.
But Wilshere believes one big result can shift perception quickly about Town’s travels and he said: “That’s the beautiful thing about football and also the crazy thing about football. People will build it up and say it’s not been good enough. We know that.
“But we’re going away to top of the league and we want to go there and impose our game and try and win the game. If it does, then everyone has a different perspective of it.”
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