Exeter City & Luton Town will be sharing underwhelming transfer feeling despite Tuesday developments | OneFootball

Millenic Alli finally scored his first goal for Luton Town on Tuesday, but has the move been a success?

It took 11 games, but Millenic Alli finally broke his Luton Town duck on Tuesday night.

The January signing has started just one game since moving to Kenilworth Road from Exeter City and, until last time out, he had failed to register a goal or an assist for the Championship strugglers.

As Grecians supporters will attest, the Dublin-born forward is often a maddening figure and if he's not regularly scoring he can actually work to the detriment of his side at times.

It could be why his game time has been limited, and Matt Bloomfield might be hoping to use him as an impact sub to come on and cause some chaos.

That theory worked on Tuesday, however, as the forward pounced from wing-back in injury time to grab what could be a vital point in the Hatters' battle against successive relegations.

Heading into the weekend, Luton are now just two points from safety on the back of much-improved form and a run of five games without a loss, including two big away wins.

The injury-time equaliser also keeps Stoke City right in the mix down the bottom as well, so it was a huge goal for a number of reasons.

Stoke goal was Alli at his best

That goal was the best of Alli, quick feet, creating space and a fierce strike based off pure instinct, but it also highlighted that those moments can be few and far between with a fair dollop of wayward and wasteful stuff thrown in there as well as he squandered a couple of better chances than the one he took at the Bet365.

He's been well-received at Luton and seems to be becoming something of a cult hero, but he's also been playing in a deeper role than he did at Exeter, popping up at right and left wing-back, which naturally limits goal-scoring opportunities somewhat.

While there's still a diamond to be polished in Alli, it's fair to say that Exeter have missed him since his departure.

Exeter still missing Alli

The fee was a bit of a drop in the ocean for the ex-Premier League side but works out at around 1/3rd of the Grecians' annual wage budget.

While the money is great, and it helps to keep the wheels turning at St James Park, he's been missed on the pitch down in Devon.

The 25-year-old remains City's top scorer in the league on nine and Josh Magennis has five games left this season to find the three goals required to draw level on the man who left around 10 weeks ago.

The Grecians look safe as houses in League One now, despite winning just four games in 2025.

Gary Caldwell's side are one-point shy of the magic 50-point mark with just five games to go.

While it's been a bit of a drab season for Exeter, they do have a good chance to go on a bit of a run between now and the summer with four of their remaining five opponents placed 17th or lower in the third tier.

The biggest complaint is that the football at St James Park is boring to watch and Alli, for all his foibles, would certainly light games up in one way or another.

He's kept the flame burning at the foot of the Championship for Luton, and it's worth noting that he's a streaky player and there is a chance he goes on a bit of a run with a batch of goals between now and the end of the season.

However, as he's been playing out of position, there are certainly mitigating factors for his poor return.

There's still plenty of time for Alli to get his feet under the table and force his way in on a regular basis, but it feels like him signing as an off-the-bench wing-back couldn't have been the plan when Luton got the cheque book out for him in January.