Elijah Adebayo will miss Luton’s trip to Liverpool with boss Rob Edwards hopeful that his hamstring injury may only keep the striker out for days, though Jacob Brown has gone under the knife for knee surgery and Mads Andersen has had a setback.
Town’s top scorer got injured during the warm-up to Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Manchester United, with Cauley Woodrow his late replacement.
And with Brown out for “the foreseeable” after an operation to repair his cartilage, it may mean that Woodrow once again partners in-form Carlton Morris at Anfield.
The captain scored against United to become the first Hatter to score in three consecutive top-flight games since Mick Harford in 1992, but the loss of Adebayo against the Premier League leaders is still a blow.
“(I’m) still not sure how bad it is,” said manager Edwards, ahead of Adebayo going to see a specialist, adding: “He’s feeling it, so he’s not available for tomorrow.”
Asked how long the nine-goal hitman will be absent for, the Town chief said: “Hopefully it’s more days but I wouldn’t like to put a timescale on it right now because sometimes these things, especially hamstrings, can play up a bit, so we’ll have to wait and see.
“He felt it in the warm-up. We’ll assess it now. We’re not sure how bad it is. Hopefully, we’re talking more days, than weeks.
“But at the same time, if we ask too much of him or push too hard, too soon, we don’t want to lose him for a long period of time.
“He’ll see the specialist and sometimes when you get scan results it can say one thing, but you’ve always got to listen to the player and how he feels as well, so there will be two aspects to it, the scan and how the player feels. But hopefully it’s not too long.”
But the prognosis is far less positive for Brown, who has been missing from action since his substitute cameo in the 4-4 draw at Newcastle almost three weeks ago.
“He won’t be an option unfortunately, no,” said Edwards, adding: “I wasn’t able to go into it the other day, but he’s had an operation for an issue with the cartilage in his knee. He’s out for the foreseeable, unfortunately.
“It happened in training last week. It was really unfortunate, an innocuous one. Different to how Marvelous did it, but it’s so unlucky. I’m really disappointed for him.
“I don’t know what the timescales are at the moment. He had his operation this morning (Tuesday).
“It was just an innocuous training ground one where he can’t really place exactly when and how he did it. It ws just a session and he felt some pain.”
The front pair have added to the longer term injuries to Marvelous Nakamba and Tom Lockyer, who has revealed this week that he’d like to play again after suffering a cardiac arrest, but that he won’t go against the advice of specialists.
Also out is Mads Andersen, who originally suffered a hamstring problem in December but has had further injuries to his calf and was spotted at Kenilworth Road on Sunday limping heavily and carrying a pair of crutches.
Edwards said: “He’s had one or two little setbacks. He’s just been finding it tough with certain areas so he’s going to see another specialist as well.
“He’s trying everything, he works so hard and all the staff have been brilliant. He gets close (to fitness) and then feels it again.
“It’s really frustrating for everyone. We’re trying our best to get to the bottom of that.”
Town’s injury woes are not on the scale of Liverpool’s ahead of their first trip to Anfield in 16 years, on a memorable night where they lost 5-0 in the FA Cup but when current owners 2020 were given preferred bidder status, effectively rescuing the club from oblivion.
The Reds are sweating on the availability of Mohamed Sala and Darwin Nunez while Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Diogo Jota, Tiago Alcantara and Dominic Szobozlai have all been ruled out.
Edwards said: “We’re missing five key one, but we were missing them the other day as well and competed well in the game against Manchester United.
“I won’t complain about it, it’s just part of the game. Everyone’s got injuries and that’s why we have a squad that we believe in.”
