West Ham captain makes a challenge on Arsenal's Jack Wilshere during a Premier League game in 2013. (Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)placeholder image
West Ham captain makes a challenge on Arsenal's Jack Wilshere during a Premier League game in 2013. (Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
Kevin Nolan admits he did not think Jack Wilshere would become a manager when he coached the new Luton Town boss at West Ham United.
Wilshere and Nolan spent eight months together at the Hammers before the midfielder left the club by mutual consent. The two also played against each other on several occasions during their Premier League days, and they come face to face again on Saturday but this time in the dugout as Wilshere’s Hatters visit Sixfields in League One.
Asked if he thought Wilshere would become a manager one day, Nolan admitted: "No, I didn’t – he was always messing around in the changing rooms and he’d tell us to get lost when we’d give him something to do! But Jack’s a real good lad and a great character and you can see he has a lot of respect for his peers. He was one of the lads in the dressing room and you knew you could rely on him.
"I’m pleased to see him get his chance. He did well at Arsenal and then dipped his toe in the water with Norwich and he obviously saw Luton as a good opportunity. I wish him all the best but obviously not on Saturday – hopefully we can give him a bit more misery and a bit more to think about.
"But I hope he does well because he’s a good guy and I really enjoyed my time working with him at West Ham, and I enjoyed playing against him too.”
After back-to-back relegations, Luton were pre-season title favourites with most pundits and bookmakers but they currently sit below Cobblers in 15th in League One, and Matt Bloomfield paid the price by losing his job at the start of October.
Nolan added: “They are obviously better than their league position suggests with the money they’ve spent and where they were two years ago. Someone told me that this weekend two years ago they were playing Liverpool so that shows where they’ve been and what’s expected of them this season.
”The problem we have is that we keep playing these teams when they are getting all their players back! It feels like we’re playing them at the wrong time but hopefully that won’t be the case at the weekend and we can get back to what we do and really impose ourselves on them.”
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