The new year didn’t start as Luton Town fans expected as Jack Wilshere’s team slumped to a 1-0 defeat on the road against Gary Caldwell’s Exeter City on New Years day, staying 8th in the table as a result of another poor performance on the road this season.
Here, we looked back on the game and looked at what Hatters fans can take out of yet another loss on the road this season.
Luton didn’t have a single shot on target against Exeter, not creating a single big chance in the entire match. This shows how creativity is desperately needed in any January signings the Hatters make.
The Hatters rank 18th in big chances created in League One this season, with only Stevenage ranking lower for big chances created in the teams that are above Luton in the table.
This shows that Luton aren’t creating nearly enough chances, and the performance against Exeter only made this point clearer.
There was almost no creativity from the Hatters out wide, potentially due to Gideon Kodua’s absence from the matchday squad.
His replacement, Cohen Bramall, completed 0/7 crosses, with Shayden Morris, completing 0/1 of his crosses from the opposite flank.
Luton fans will be hoping that new man Ethon Archer will provide creativity when he links up with the Hatters.
Cheltenham Town manager Steve Cotterill already confirmed their defeat to Crewe on New Year’s Day was Archer’s final game with the squad, providing an assist in a 4-1 defeat.
Since Wilshere’s appointment in October, Luton have conceded in the first 20 minutes of the second half in the league seven times in 13 games, only scoring goals in this period once themselves.
This is clearly a real issue for Luton Town, as when they have conceded in this period under Wilshere, they have only gone on to win these games once, a 2-1 victory over Huddersfield, losing another four in return.
The only time the Hatters scored in this period themselves was in a 3-2 loss against Reading just before Christmas.
Therefore, this period of a game is something that Wilshere’s men have to work on in order to look to climb up the table in the second half of the season.
This could be down to Wilshere making substitutions at the wrong times for the Town, with him only making unforced subs before the 60th minute once when Luton have been losing during his time in charge, this being in a 5-0 loss to Barnsley.
Luton’s strikers have gone through a terrible time in front of goal in the league so far this season, making a combined 62 appearances between them all, scoring only two goals from open play through Lasse Nordas and Jerry Yates.
With Wilshere clearly favouring Yates and Nahki Wells as the team’s main strikers, it is fair to say that neither of these have lived up to their expectations so far this season.
Since Wilshere’s appointment, Luton have only won one game that Yates started, with him netting the winner against Huddersfield.
However this statistic shows that Yates shouldn’t be Luton’s first choice striker going forward.
With Nahki Wells also underperforming for the Hatters this season, scoring zero goals from open play himself.
Luton Town fans will be hoping that Ali Al Hamadi can perform once fit, with him being sidelined by injury for most of the season so far, only appearing in one league game.
However the Iraqi international hopes to be fit again by the end of the month and this will be a huge boost to Luton’s promotion hopes, provided he can get scoring.
