Jack Wilshere simply must go all-in on £1m winger at Luton Town | OneFootball

After a £1m move from Aberdeen in the summer, Shayden Morris has shown glimpses to Jack Wilshere that should now make him a regular at Luton Town.

The shift in mood and expectations at Kenilworth Road from the summer to now is quite stark and yet there is a return to some positivity with one of the reasons for so much optimism in the summer, Shayden Morris, now a cause for excitement once again.

Luton Town suffered relegation on the final day of last season with a 5-2 loss at The Hawthorns against West Bromwich Albion, making it back-to-back demotions for the Hatters, since scaling the heights of Premier League promotion in May 2023.

The sheer depth and quality of this Luton squad marked them out as pre-season title favourites, especially with former Wycombe Wanderers boss Matt Bloomfield at the helm.

However, the size of the squad may well have played against Luton in the ensuing weeks with Bloomfield unable to implement anything with much clarity or cohesion, and finding the best eleven with a straightforward squad hierarchy was extremely tricky.

After an underwhelming start to the campaign, Bloomfield then departed Bedfordshire and was replaced by Jack Wilshere, his first managerial role, in mid-to-late-October.

It has been an inconsistent start for Wilshere, and a 5-0 annihilation at the hands of Barnsley at Oakwell recently didn’t help matters, but there are green shoots, with the Hatters coming from behind to defeat Huddersfield Town before then fighting back to earn a 1-1 draw against Bolton Wanderers.

That game against Bolton saw Luton grow steadily into the game and Xavier Simons’ second-half certainly added Town, but so did the introduction of former Aberdeen man Shayden Morris, who should now be a priority selection for Wilshere.

Shayden Morris has shown Jack Wilshere his quality

Having arrived for £1 million from Aberdeen in the summer, there was a lot of enthusiasm over the signing of Shayden Morris from Luton supporters, with that being a significant outlay for any League One side.

The former Fleetwood Town man enjoyed an impressive stint in Scotland and he began to shine most last season, providing six assists for the Dandies, the joint-most of any Aberdeen player in the Scottish Premiership.

His pace and directness was expected to simply be a level above what most League One defences could handle and he showed some bright spots at the beginning of this season before becoming frustrated by injury in the last couple of months.

However, having returned to action with a late substitute appearance against Huddersfield in that come from behind victory, Morris was then again brought on late on against Bolton and he very nearly turned the game on its head.

The 23-year-old winger immediately scared Bolton left-back Richard Taylor, who had played against Morris when at Saint Mirren last season, and had come on just moments earlier.

Taylor, renowned for his pace, was burnt inside 60 seconds of Morris entering the pitch and from the resulting Morris cross, as well as some fairly lax Bolton defending, Luton got themselves an equaliser via Gideon Kodua.

Luton then piled the pressure on with Morris a key element of upping the ante and the tempo of their play as they came so close to another winning goal before settling for a 1-1 draw.

Luton have lacked the dynamism that Shayden Morris can bring

According to FotMob, Luton are ranked as low as 12th in League One for the most accurate cross per game with a success rate of just 17.7%. They are, remarkably, 19th in the division for big chances.

Shayden Morris created 25 chances last season at Aberdeen, the third most of any Dons player, and was a consistent threat, more so than pretty much any Luton player has been throughout the start of this season.

There is pedigree and quality in the positions that he is competing for, with Lamine Fanne and Jacob Brown having started for Town against Bolton at the weekend.

However, Morris has already shown a dynamism and incision that should mark him out as someone who should be starting regularly and be becoming a key man at Kenilworth Road.

In his limited minutes so far this season, Morris has created five chances, which averages out at two per game. The next most efficient creator of chances is set-piece taker George Saville, with 27 at 1.7 per game.