Luton Town have moved to solve their number nine problem by signing Devante Cole from Port Vale, with Jack Wilshere insisting the 30-year-old is the forward he wanted to add after what he described as an “exhaustive search”.
However, in signing Cole and hailing him as the answer, Wilshere is only outlining exactly how far the Hatters have fallen this season. He arrives having scored regularly at this level in the past, and he also found the net against Luton earlier this season during Port Vale’s 2-2 draw at Kenilworth Road. But, with just six goals for a side struggling at the bottom of the table, he certainly isn’t the saviour Wilshere wants fans to believe.
The Hatters have been short of goals from their recognised strikers in open play, while Wilshere has also had to juggle the absences and fitness issues that have shaped Luton’s attacking options. Cole, who has previously hit 18 and 15 goals in successive League One seasons for Barnsley, is viewed as a player who can offer an immediate presence and give Town a different reference point in the final third.
“I’m really happy. We went into the market clear that we wanted a number nine, and we looked at so many, but we didn’t want to be forced into getting someone that we don’t think is going to help us and Devante is definitely someone who’s going to help us.”
Cole, speaking after completing the move, said he was pleased to get the deal over the line and referenced the familiarity of Kenilworth Road from his visits as an opposition player, alongside the benefit of linking up with players he already knows from previous clubs.
Opinion
Sadly, Wilshere is deluded if he thinks Devante Cole is the answer to his issues, because this is a signing that treats the symptoms, not the causes. Luton have not looked short of “a striker”, they have looked short of a coherent plan for getting strikers chances, and that problem does not disappear because a new body walks through the door with “number nine” stamped on the tin.
When supporters talk about this one as a “panic buy” or the definition of a journeyman, they are not necessarily saying Cole cannot play. They are saying it feels like the club has ended up fishing where it always ends up fishing when the original plan does not land, late-window “market opportunities” rather than proactive recruitment. If you get to the end of the month and the solution is a striker from the team at the wrong end of the table, it inevitably reads like desperation, not design.
There is also a wider point that keeps cropping up in the reaction. Luton are no longer shopping with the same pull they had, and that is a legacy of last season’s damage. There is frustration, not just about this individual deal, but about the sense of collapse in stature, the nagging feeling that the club’s recruitment has drifted from clear “process” targets into something reactive and short-term, even when the stated ambition is to build a development environment and push forward again.
Cole might score goals. He might even give Luton a better focal point than they have had. But if the system is still muddled, if the build-up does not feed the forward line, and if this is still a side that waits until it is cornered before addressing obvious gaps, then the same problems will simply find a new name to sit beside them.
