Yet again beaten by the side from one of the few towns that make Luton look an attractive place.
It’s simply so frustrating that Luke Wilkinson was not picked up or his path blocked for that opening goal. Why is it so frustrating? Well, it’s not as if NJ had no knowledge of Wilkinson’s threat in the penalty area as he had scored 7 goals in his 62 appearances for the Hatters. Maybe NJ would have benefited from having an experienced defender on his coaching staff but hang on, Hart is that experienced “dump them on their bum’s” centre-half, in fact, Hart when he was manager of Portsmouth, said of Wilkinson “the most impressive debut I have seen from any young player” when he signed him and made his Portsmouth reserve team debut. So, with that background knowledge, why had precautions not been taken against Wilkinson from set pieces? Ok, these things happen but it does not stop it from being simply annoying. Overall the game was just so disappointing from a Luton point of view with our visitors Stevenage, being just so up for the game: during the entire 90 minutes they were consistently first to the second ball and Wilkinson and his co-centre back dominated in the air. We did have our chances but the 41-year-old Day in Stevenage’s goal pulled off some excellent saves; maybe on another day we would have managed a point but to be fair, the commitment shown by the Stevenage players was simply way ahead of anything offered by our Luton players. The second goal by Ben Kennedy, a player I have liked for a while now, was worthy of winning any game; simply a superb strike from range. Overall Impression: Simply beaten on the day by a side who wanted the win more than we did. Stevenage worked harder, won most loose balls and continually pressed when they had the opportunity to do so. Overall a very disappointing day to be a Hatter and I for one can’t see any reason why Dan Potts, a decent defender but no wing back, should be selected ahead of a guy who can actually play wing back; Jack Senior! Oh, and while I am at it, why ever is O’Donnell selected ahead of the very talented Justin: sorry Nathan you got a fair bit wrong on Saturday. Please don’t think that I am getting anti-NJ, I think he needs a couple of full seasons to build his side and for what it’s worth he has my support albeit it only about 60:40 in terms of satisfaction; can’t fault the away form as that is brilliant but for the long suffering home supporters its tough. The problem is that he is learning and that I can accept, yet the frustrating part is he seems to be learning rather slowly. Maybe if Hart is up to it he could more forcibly mentor Jones but there again after hearing Harts comments about the odd player maybe not but I really don’t know anything about the dynamics of the Jones/Hart working relationship. A few comments on individual performances: Macey: personally I feel he should have done better with that corner that resulted in a typical Wilkinson goal. O’Donnell: as ever, tried his best and did actually produce a couple of decent crosses. Cuthbert: mostly decent but surely he should have been more aware of the Wilkinson threat that resulted in the opening goal. Sheehan: reasonable game but not at his best. Potts: not really impressive: ever time he had the ball moving forward he looked to pass backwards “god where am I, where is Sheehan to help me”: mistake by NJ and for heaven's sake start learning from these selection mistakes. Rea: do we really need a centre-back playing at the base of the dreaded diamond when we are at home? No more to say on that one. Smith: chasing the game most of the afternoon and never imposed himself on the midfield in the desired way. Pelly: tried to play some football but passes were often over-hit. Cook: can’t really comment as I am not overly sure he was on the pitch. Vassell: all credit to Vassell he really did try his best and ran at the Stevenage defence at every opportunity. Hylton: for most of the game really well managed by Darren Sarll’s tactics of his two centre backs. , maybe Sarll learns a lot quicker than Nathan does.
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Hi there, welcome to my site where I chronicle various things about the Hatters, a team I have followed since the mid 60’sArchives
December 2017
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