Otsapa Victory
Major Breaking : Luton Town’s Shocking Defensive Collapse as Teenager Thrust into…
Luton boss Rob Edwards stated it has been ‘incredibly challenging’ to try and manage the Hatters through what he described a ‘stressful’ period due to the unbelievable amount of injury problems that have dogged the club in recent months.
With Town back in the Premier League and having beaten Brighton & Hove Albion 4-0 on home soil, then drawing 4-4 at Newcastle United in early February, all was starting to look rosy in Luton’s back garden, as they began to eye what would have been a stunning achievement of top flight survival. However, having already lost Zimbabwean international Marvelous Nakamba to a serious knee injury, with Mads Andersen and Dan Potts out too, they then saw Jacob Brown go down for the season with a knee problem, as things quickly began to take a turn for the worse.
Town soon found themselves decimated, Teden Mengi, Amari’i Bell, Sambi Lokonga, Gabe Osho, Issa Kabore, Elijah Adebayo, Jordan Clark and Reece Burke all facing differing periods of time out, leaving Edwards having to often selected two goalkeepers and five untested teenagers on the bench, as their slight chances of staying up were unsurprisingly extinguished.
It looked like Luton might have turned a corner going into their Championship campaign, but it started again during pre-season, Japanese international Daiki Hashioka suffering a calf problem in an early friendly contest, Burke, Andersen, Nakamba and Brown all still absent as well. An all too familiar pattern then ensued, Bell suffering another hamstring issue, Andersen out again, Carlton Morris sidelined and Tahith Chong suffering concussion.
Going into yesterday’s derby fixture against Watford, they were without four first teamers in Mengi, summer signing Reuell Walters due to a broken foot, midfielder Shandon Baptiste and Bell. Any hopes of getting through unscathed were over once full debutant Tom Holmes was forced off at half time, although not due to the head injury he picked up ahead of the break, while during the second period, Town’s players dropped like flies.
First Burke went down with a groin issue, then Chong was withdrawn after receiving treatment and later on Tom Krauß couldn’t continue. It saw Luton finish with a back three of Mark McGuinness, who had also been a doubt himself, flanked by Hashioka and Alfie Doughty as emergency centre halves, with teenager Joe Johnson at left wingback, Victor Moses on the other side.
Despite that, the hosts somehow managed to come good and enjoy a brilliant 3-0 triumph, with the clean sheet a quite terrific effort from those on the pitch. But with a game coming up against Sunderland on Wednesday, with Town then heading to Coventry City next weekend as well, Edwards said: “I’ll do it when we’ve won as I don’t want to do it when we’ve lost, but this is incredibly challenging at the moment. It has been since February and again we’ll deal with it on Wednesday.
“So I’m really proud of the lads, every one of them. Alfie when he went in at centre back was incredible, absolutely brilliant. The blocks, the intensity that he played at, he was a real credit, but they all were. Hashi’s not played a minute since pre-season when he was injured, he’s got to come into a massive game like that at half time. We’re plugging gaps and putting people in and today they really responded. I’m so, so proud of them and the whole club.
“I’m happy, it’s a relief. It’s been a stressful period and it still will be as what team will we pick on Wednesday? So I’m pretty drained right now. I’ve just gone in and collapsed on the sofa after I’ve spoken to the players for five, 10 minutes, so I’ll find out in a bit (who’s available). I probably had that five minutes on the couch (to enjoy the win) and then I’ll start worrying about Wednesday.”
Giving an update on the players who went off and who might be available for selection in midweek, midfielder Liam Walsh serving the final match of his three game ban, Edwards added: “It wasn’t (concussion for Holmes), but he wasn’t able to continue so we’ll see how he is. There were a few knocks that he took. He did really well. We’re disappointed that we lost him when we did, we’ll see how he is for Wednesday
“Tom Krauß might be more illness. He was up all night, he wasn’t very well, so I thought his performance was really good. Maybe he might be more illness, so hopefully he’ll be okay. Chongy we’ll have to assess, Burkey I think was his groin. He hasn’t trained for two weeks. We didn’t know if he’d be fit to play. He had an injection and trained a little bit yesterday (Friday), but we can’t keep doing that, so we’ll see how he is.
“Shandon just had a bit of tightness. Hopefully he’s available, but he certainly won’t be fit to start at the moment as he was only 20, 30 minutes against Sheffield a couple of weeks ago. It’s just making sure that we don’t then push him and break him, so fingers crossed for him.”
