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Critical Luton boss demands match officials are held 'accountable' Town chief disappointed by the decision-making at the weekend Luton manager Jack Wilshere demanded that match officials are also held 'accountable' having been critical of the performance of referee Leigh Doughty and his assistants during Town’s brilliant 4-3 win at Reading on Saturday. The decision-making of the trio was called into question early on, as almost immediately after Jake Richards had put the visitors in front, Town were pegged back when Jack Marriott slid into reach Kal Naismith’s under-hit back pass to beat Josh Keeley. However, both the skipper and the coaching staff were up in arms that attacker Kyreece Lisbie hadn’t been flagged offside to the original ball over the top before he pressurised the left back, only to see the flag stay down and the equaliser allowed to stand. There were further remonstrations on 39 minutes as with Marriott having put the Royals in front, Naismith was then clearly pushed in the back by Lisbie for a foul that went unpunished, the summer signing from Colchester able to sprint away on the right and find an unmarked Marriott to complete his hat-trick, an incident that saw Wilshere booked for his remonstrations with the fourth official afterwards. When Izzy Jones was shoved over by Andy Rinomhota just before the break, with nothing doing, it saw first team coach David Bridges also cautioned as the anger threatened to boil over when the two sides went down the tunnel at half time. After the break, Doughty continued to be hit and miss in his application of the new leniency rules that have been put in place by the EFL this term in a bid to improve the flow of the game, handing out a yellow card to Liam Walsh for the same kind incident that went unpunished earlier, with several pushes then given and not given as the contest progressed. Speaking about the performance of the officials afterwards, Wilshere said: “The first one’s offside. Yes we have to do better after and the third one is a foul and it’s frustrating. I’ll always hold the players accountable and they hold themselves accountable, I’ve always said that, but officials need to be held accountable as well as that’s not good enough. I was frustrated at half time, I always say to the players about control the things we can control, I have to do that as well and we have to do that as a staff. It’s hard, it’s frustrating. The first goal was offside, I’ll hold Kal accountable, he’ll hold himself accountable, but officials have to be held accountable as well.” Although Town’s players and staff were no doubt left frustrated at the break, they were able to shrug off that disappointment in the second period, with Kasey Palmer scoring twice in quick succession and then Gideon Kodua netting in injury time to earn all three points. Asked whether he thought that at 3-3, and with nine minutes of stoppage time added, that the Hatters could go on to triumph in front of almost 2,500 travelling fans, Wilshere continued: “I think there’s always that balance right and I always think then, the players give you the message on the pitch. "I’m not on the pitch, the coaches aren’t on the pitch. You get a feel, is the game open? Have we got one more left in us? We spoke a lot in pre-season about away from home, respective points, but I thought it was the right decision to keep going, keep pushing. They showed the character to create a moment like that with the fans which is top.” Once Kodua did slam into the net, having initially hit the bar, Richards’ follow up landing in his path to do so, extending Luton’s unbeaten run to 14 matches in all competitions, then Wilshere set off from his position in the dug-out to enjoy the moment with his players. He did curtail his celebrations knowing he was already in the referee’s notebook, adding: “I was really, really excited and happy. I was down the line and then I got half-way down the line and I was thinking, I’ve been booked here, I need to slowly get back, but just delighted for the players as they’ve given so much in pre-season. "Of course every manager will say that every lad’s done well and they’ve pushed, but this has been going on since Reading at home where we’ve been on this run. We’ve had this spirit, we keep finding a way, we have played with real purpose. We want to keep that going and that certainly helps.”