Jack Wilshere lifts the Vertu Trophy at Wembley - pic: David Horn / PRiME Media Imagesplaceholder image
Jack Wilshere lifts the Vertu Trophy at Wembley - pic: David Horn / PRiME Media Images
Ex-Gunners midfielder wins the first trophy of his managerial career at Wembley
Luton boss Jack Wilshere insisted that winning the Vertu Trophy as manager of the Hatters was a much better feeling than lifting the FA Cup as a player with Arsenal.
The 34-year-old, who was appointed to his first senior role as Matt Bloomfield’s successor back in October, had got his hands on silverware twice at the home of English football previously, coming off the bench for the Gunners as they beat Hull City in 3-2 in 2014 and doing so again 12 months later in the 4-0 hammering of Aston Villa.
Although he didn’t actually step on to the field yesterday, taking his place in the dug-out instead as Town went up against Stockport County, Wilshere believed that masterminding Luton to the trophy for the second time in their history courtesy of a fully deserved 3-1 victory over League One rivals Stockport County, far surpassed his previous experiences at the home of English football.
He said: “It’s better and don’t get me wrong, I loved every single second of my career, especially the times when we came here and won trophies, but to do it as a coach and with the people as well is better. I genuinely mean that too as I’ve felt nothing but love since I've been here. From the board, from Gary (Sweet, chief executive), from Moons (James Mooney, operations director), from everyone.
"Everyone at the training ground, the physios, the staff, they’ve backed me and they’ve got behind me and believed in me and I couldn’t have done it without them. So to be standing there on the side of the pitch as the leader, but behind a really hard working group of people who want the best for this club it feels really good.
"When you’re a player you are selfish because your main concern is making sure you’re right, physically you’re right, mentally you’re right, technically you’re right. Then as a coach you’re job is to do that for everyone and the players most importantly, but the staff as well and empower the staff and inspire the staff to believe in you and commit themselves which they do every single day to improving the players, making sure the players have all they can and there’s more responsibility as a coach, of course there is, so I’d say that’s the biggest thing.”
Wilshere was particularly pleased with the role that the more experienced members of his squad played in seeing Luton replicate their 2009 success when beating Scunthorpe United 3-2 to win what was then the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, with Nahki Wells scoring twice, James Shea getting the nod in goal, Jordan Clark grabbing an assist and Kal Naismith ending his first Wembley experience by lifting the trophy in front of over 30,000 Hatters fans.
He continued: “It’s a really nice feeling. Mainly I’m just happy for the players as we spoke a lot after games, before games, and at times we’ve spoken about confidence. We’ve spoken about belief, which you can’t change overnight, you have to go through and experience things, come back stronger and you need players who can help you with that.
"Nahki being one, Kal being one, Savs (George Saville), Clicker, people like that, who have had a career in the game. They know that football is a beautiful game when it’s nice and you get to play, but if you don’t have resilience and the ability to deal with adversity and come through it, then this game will eat you up. They’re so important to the other players, the young players, the Emilios (Lawrence), the Jakes (Richards), the players that are starting out in their careers and I’m just really happy for them.”
Although the game didn’t entirely go the way Luton wanted it to, having to hit back from conceding to Adama Sidibeh’s counter-attacking strike on just 11 minutes, the manner in which they went about their first half thoroughly impressed Wilshere. Not rocked by that early goal, Lawrence raced away to make it 1-1 with 22 minutes gone, Town going to be by far the better team, and good value for the lead at half time, given to them by Wells’ excellent control and strike from Naismith’s pass in the closing stages.
They could have led by more at the break too, Hakeem Odoffin heading narrowly wide, while after the interval Luton did find themselves under pressure at times, but they were able to withstand what came their way, Shea making a superb save with eight minutes to go when tipping Josh Stokes’ close range header on to the bar.
They then made sure of victory in the first minute of 10 added on through Wells, as summing up their display Wilshere added: “I was really happy. I felt really confident today when we started the game because I thought the players executed everything and you could see they were trying to do the right thing. We didn’t quite get it right all the time, especially in the first five or 10 minutes. When were attacking we were committing too many players forward and we weren’t respecting their counter-attack.
"You could see, we got caught and Haks (Hakeem Odoffin) cleared it up and then we got caught out again where they punished us. So we adjusted a couple of things with that, where we’re attacking, how many players we need to make sure are attacking and make sure we don’t get counter-attacked on. The players did, they executed it and I was confident because I knew the spaces that Stockport could leave.
"I knew that the players really understood how to attack those spaces and they did that, credit to them. At times I’ve stood here after the game and said we probably could have had a few more goals and we took those moments today so I’m really happy with that. We had a lot of control too, not always in this league do you have that, but against a team like Stockport, I think you need to have it, because if you don’t take the control, they’ll try and take control.
"We took it, we knew we were going to create chances, we spoke about a team that I respect, as they like to play and they’ve got some good footballers in (Oliver) Norwood who they try and play through, but when that’s the case, we also have an opportunity in high press where we win the ball back and our first goal came from that. There was always things in the game that you can’t control, I thought second half we probably could have done better, but we knew the importance of getting over the line. The third goal helped out with that, credit to the players as well as we suffered a bit in the second half.”
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