Luton manager Jack Wilshere revealed that promising 18-year-old Jake Richards was replaced at half time in Saturday’s stalemate against Rotherham because he’d been battling through a knock.
Despite picking up the issue in training earlier in the week, the youngster had been handed another chance to impress after scoring his first league goal for the Hatters in last week’s 3-0 victory at league leaders Stockport County.
Luton struggled for rhythm in the final third against the Millers and Richards was replaced by Gideon Kodua, but they could not find the breakthrough that would have sealed a fifth win on the spin.
Explaining his half time decision, Wilshere said: “Jake had a knock. Maybe yesterday or Thursday in training and credit to him. I love it about him. 18-year-old that said, ‘I just really want to play’.
“And we wanted to give that opportunity. I could see he was in pain a little bit. So yeah, we decided to take him off. And you know, Gideon was close [to starting] as well. When Jake got the knock we were obviously thinking about who could play and Gideon was probably a little bit unlucky that we chose to go with Jake, but we need everyone and I think the players are starting to see that.”
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