'So many 'pinch me' moments' for new boss Wilshere

Jack Wilshere has said he has loved "every single moment" since being appointed Luton Town manager, as the former Arsenal and England midfielder prepares to take charge of the team for the first time.

The Hatters host Mansfield at Kenilworth Road on Saturday.

The 33-year-old has vowed to repay the faith put in him by the club, having only having previously filled a head coach role for two games at Norwich City last season.

"My office looks out on the first pitch I played on when I first joined the academy and there have been so many 'pinch me' moments," he told BBC Three Counties Radio.

"I said to my wife that this is amazing, I love every single moment of it, the love the fans have given me on social media - I know they want to win games, so do I and that's what we're going to try to do.

"I was good at football, it came natural to me. This is something different, something I've really had to work for - there have been some tough moments along the journey but genuinely this is the proudest moment of my career."

Although wins are needed to lift confidence, with the club 11th in League One, Wilshere has avoided bombarding the players with too many ideas in the first week of training.

"At the start, my job is to work out what we need and try to introduce it slowly, while winning games. The buzz around the town, we have to use that - we need to capture that and keep it going forwards," he said.

"In the early days, we'll try to put players in positions where they're doing the things they like more often, rather than asking them to do things they're probably not comfortable with.

"It's hard for me to pick a team right now because everyone has been really good, the energy's been high. My message to the players was that whatever team I pick, we need the (whole) squad and they have to have the right attitude, the right body language when they find out the team because they could make a big difference (in a game)."

Whatever style Wilshere settles on, he is prepared to 'win ugly' if necessary following a run of four points from the last five league games under his immediate predecessor Matt Bloomfield - and defeat by League Two side Cambridge United in the Vertu Trophy.

"I always reference it back to me as a player, I hated defending - I know there are players in there who just want the ball and to have fun with it, but in football there are two sides to the game," he said.

"When we play teams with a low block we have to have the mentality not to get bored, keep doing the right things and if it takes 85 minutes to score and win 1-0, we don't care, we'll keep doing that."

Wilshere believes that following on from their season in the Premier League, Luton have become "stuck" in a pattern of losing more games than they have won, which led to relegation from the Championship last term.

"When you're thinking about coming somewhere and spend hours and hours watching games and clips, the overriding feeling is that we've got a very good squad, probably conceded some cheap goals, and we have to be able to deal with those situations better, come back and still be in games," he added.

"A lot of random moments can happen, you can dominate a game and find yourself 1-0 down, there seems to be a little bit of chaos, a little bit of panic, and we need to be calm in those moments and trust that we've got a good squad."