Hatters manager Jack Wilshere has spoken of his pride in turning the 2025/26 campaign around with a Wembley win and a 12-game unbeaten run that took the race for the Sky Bet League One play-offs to the very last seconds of the season.

But with plans for pre-season starting with the players’ return on Thursday 2nd July, three friendlies arranged at Hitchin Town, in Murcia during a week-long Spanish training camp and then at home to Go Ahead Eagles, in an exclusive interview with LTFC+, he has quickly turned his focus to what he calls “an exciting future ahead of us”.

As continues to work on building a new Luton Town football identity, Jack told us: “It’s important that we do reflect. We had a really good review day with all the staff, all the departments, on what went well, what we need to keep and what we need to change to try and help improve the team.

“Personally, I’m proud of what we achieved. Ultimately, and this is what I said to the staff, we made big steps, but ultimately we fell short and that’s why it’s really important that we do reflect and we review everything, because next year we want to improve and improvement next year is really important points wise, because we know our ambition.

“I’m proud of what we achieved, proud of the players because I spoke a lot about the adversity they had to face, and we have to have players who can deal with that.

"But it also is very difficult at times when the club’s been on the journey that they have, the players have to take that and try and turn that into performances. The players did that and it was a little bit too little, too late, but we’ve got an exciting future ahead of us.”

Following their appointment in mid-October, Jack and assistant Chris Powell talked of the need to suffer, show resilience and rebuild confidence and belief in order to change the fortunes of a squad that had suffered double relegation from the Premier League.

Looking back on a campaign that finished with the Hatters top of the League One form table and with just one defeat in our last 17 league and cup matches, he said: “We made big steps. When I first came in here, I felt the players were all-in from day one.

“I remember walking into auditorium for my first meeting and just seeing all the players’ eyes open and really keen to get going. Then the first game came, and I realised that it wasn’t going to be just straightforward as just coming in and a few meetings.

“It was going to take a lot of work and I found a group that just needed some direction, an identity to cling on to, to try and create a new team, a new way of playing – and that’s why I’m just really so proud of the players because that wasn’t always easy.

“I think about some tough away days that we had early on, some tough games at home, some tough moments within games where we think, ‘OK, we’ve done really well here’, and then for the last ten minutes we lose it.

“Probably my biggest learning from this year, and I always thought this going into coaching and into management, is that you have to have a process. You have to have an identity, a way of playing that you keep reflecting to, that you keep reviewing.

“I’m proud of the players, but I’m also proud of the coaches and the staff because there were times where it clearly wasn’t working, and what we were trying to do consistently enough to get results that we needed, and there’s a decision that has to be made as a group: do we change everything? Or do we just adapt a few things that are based around the style we want?

“We did that really well, even when I think about the away run that we went on which wasn’t good enough, and the different things that we tried. We kept always being adaptable as coaches, and that’s really important at this level because you come up against so many different styles, different ways of playing.

“You have to understand them, understand what’s going to work against them, and I think we did that really well.”

Planning for next season started well ahead of the final day trip to Bolton, which the Town won 3-2 only to be denied a play-off place by Stevenage’s controversial injury-time winner against Barnsley.

“We were planning for two different situations, one we wanted and it didn’t quite happen, and the one we find ourselves in now,” the Town boss went on. “There is so much that goes into that, recruitment being a big part of it.

“But also there are things that we need to reflect on as coaches, that we need to improve as coaches to try and help the team because we fell short. As proud as we are, and as much progress that we made, we want to take that next step next year and the only way you do that is by trying to identify the things that we can improve as coaches.

“There are some things we need to recruit, and different types of players. But there are some areas that we can improve the players in and make sure that they are more prepared going into certain games next season.

“That’s started and that’s a process that I’m looking forward to, I’m enjoying at the moment, but I miss it a lot. I watched the playoff games at the weekend and that hurt a lot because we wanted to be there. That can give you that drive as well to make sure that we are in and around it next year.”