Lack of game time causes frustration for Hatters midfielder

The 29-year-old, who joined permanently in the summer after a loan spell last term, had started just three games in the league until Saturday’s clash with Bristol Rovers.

From not even featuring at Doncaster last week, he was then back in the starting line-up and repaid manager Nathan Jones’ faith with the second half winner, as speaking afterwards, the Scot said: “It’s been a bit frustrating, I want to play as much as I can and I’ve been a little bit frustrated.

“It can be tough at times, I’m not going to lie, nobody wants to be on the bench or not involved, you just want to be playing.

“Especially when you’re working hard in training and you feel you can add stuff to the team, so I was a bit disappointed last week that I didn’t manage to feature at all.

“Luckily I’ve got in the starting XI this week and managed to get on the scoresheet and win the match.

“I want to play as much as I can, so I’ll just work as hard as I can and I’m just going to keep pushing on from there and keep playing.”

On just why he opted to recall Shinnie for Harry Cornick against the Pirates, boss Jones said: “We’ve watched them and we felt there wasn’t much space in behind them.

“So we thought Harry likes space and to get in behind and to stretch it.

“We felt, do we utilise Harry’s pace against a deep back four? Or do we play an extra midfield player and have a clever front man playing? Does that give us more dividends? And it did.”

Meanwhile, team-mate Dan Potts was thrilled his car buddy was on target and praised Shinnie for not getting too down despite his lack of action.

He added: “I’m good mates with Shins, I drive in with Shins, he’s a great lad.

“He puts his all for the team, but he has got that bit of quality as well as he showed with the goal, hopefully there’s more to come from him.

“I give it to him, he’s the same player if he’s in the team, not in the team, on the training pitch, it’s the same Shins.

“You know what you’re going to get from him and I think that’s probably why the manager can rely on putting him back and he’s chipped in with a goal as well.”