Disappointed Jack Wilshere says Mansfield Town 'punished' promotion-chasing Luton as two points dropped

Stags had to settle for a draw in their penultimate match at the One Call Stadium after promotion-chasing Luton cancelled out Jon Russell’s first half brace. The midfielder netted a double in the space of seven minutes to put Mansfield 2-0 up just before the half hour mark. However, thanks to a 40th minute goal from Kasey Palmer, Hatters entered the break with their tails up.

The visitors were able to fight back to scrape a point in their pursuit of a play-off spot but the main takeaway in Wilshere’s camp is that two points have been dropped.

Luton are still three points behind sixth-placed Stevenage but have been leapfrogged by Plymouth, who capitalised on both the Hatters and the Boro drawing on Saturday. Stevenage also drew 2-2 in their clash when they hosted champions elect Lincoln City.

Acknowledging Stags’ threat, Wilshere was pleased with his side’s performance in the second half but ultimately feels the damage was done by Nigel Clough’s side in the first half.

The Hatters boss addressed the positivity of coming back from 2-0 down but admitted it was disappointing not to bag all three points.

“I think that’s the feeling in the dressing room but there’s a lesson there – we can’t give two goals away,” Wilshere said post-match. “We’ve spoken about that so much and we’ve improved on that this season but it was really to hard to create the chances we did and it was even harder to put them away. They’ve got some good players and they punished us with that.

“Credit to the players in the second half because they showed personality and character to come back and kept creating chances. There was only one team in the game in the second half. The most frustrating thing is that we can start the game like and we can be the team that dominates and has the ball.

“Against a team like this, you know they’re going to be really up for it especially against a home crowd, one of their last games this season at home. They’ve had a really good season and they’ve kept themselves safe. They fans are going to be supporting them and we have to deal with them, manage their momentum and stop them scoring… and we didn’t do that.”

Luton have three games left to bank as many points as possible but as things stand, the play-off competition is out of their hands. Hatters are now relying on both Plymouth and Stevenage to drop points in order to give them a pathway into sixth place.

“I said to the players, we will still fight and we are in this,” Wilshere continued. “We’re going into a tough game where we’re going to have to take our lessons from today and the mentality of starting the game right and not allowing the opposition to just score goals. We will fight right until the end.”

Mansfield Town are now up to the 55-point mark, beating last season’s overall tally with four matches left to play.