Luton Town boss Jack Wilshere believes Sverre Sandal’s brief first appearance at Kenilworth Road will only increase the midfielder’s desire for more minutes after finally making his debut in the Hatters’ 3-2 win over Exeter City on Tuesday night.
The 22-year-old Norwegian has endured a frustrating start to life in Bedfordshire since joining from Norwegian top-flight side KFUM on transfer deadline day on February 2. Arriving during the Norwegian close season meant Sandal had not played a competitive game since November, while a minor quad injury shortly after arriving further delayed his introduction to first-team action.
After stepping up his return to fitness with a 45-minute outing for the under-21s in their 1-0 victory over Barnet just over a week earlier, Sandal was named in a Luton matchday squad for the first time against Exeter.
His debut eventually came deep into stoppage time when he replaced George Saville as the Hatters held on for a valuable win in their push towards the League One play-offs.
Wilshere admitted the midfielder would naturally want more than the handful of seconds he received but believes the moment will fuel his determination.
“He’ll probably want longer and he’ll get longer of course, but we decided to do it because Saville had to come off with a head injury,” he said.
“That will leave a little bit more hunger in him to get on the pitch as I thought the fans were excellent tonight and they stayed with us the whole way through.”
Sandal’s late introduction came after a confusing sequence of events that followed Saville suffering a head injury in the closing moments of the match. With the midfielder requiring treatment, Luton needed to make a quick change to avoid being reduced to ten men.
Explaining the situation afterwards, Wilshere revealed: “Sav got booked, I think he took one for the team.
“The rules are always changing, but apparently if you get a head injury, you have to go off even if the physios don’t come on.
“The physio was saying to the fourth [official], ‘ask the ref if he wants me to come on.’ Sav was saying, ‘no he doesn’t want him to come on.’
“The ref was saying, ‘no you have to come on, or he’s got to go off anyway,’ so we decided to make a change quickly, but we ran out of time so Sav had to help us by going down.
“I don’t really know, I think Sav was more than happy to take one for the team.”
Although Sandal has now made his first appearance for the club, Wilshere admitted the midfielder’s lack of recent football meant the club had to take a cautious approach following his arrival in England.
“He obviously hasn’t played that much football because of pre-season in where he was playing before, he was in his off season and then he started to come back,” he said.
“He felt a little bit of an injury after we signed him and we had to get him going again, and we have.
“We wanted to be patient because again he’s someone that can help us, hopefully this season and before the end of the season, but also for the long term.
“We want to get him right and we want to make sure that when he comes back, he’s ready, he’s ready to deal with the intensity, ready to deal with the demands, what we want from midfielders.”
Having waited six weeks to see the new signing on the pitch for Luton, Wilshere said: “It’s frustrating, I understand it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating for me because we signed him because he’s a good player and we think and we know what he can help us now, but also for the future.
“I want him now, probably most fans want to see him now, so I understand it is frustrating.”
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