Matt Bloomfield has confirmed that Luton Town will make changes for tonight’s Carabao Cup first-round tie at Coventry City, with a number of returning players set to be handed starts.
Town have begun their League One campaign with two straight victories and zero goals conceded, but after a summer of change – where ten players have been signed and 11 of last term’s first team squad now departed, plus injuries and illness – the tie will be used to get minutes into players that haven’t featured as prominently so far.
“Yes, there will be,” said Bloomfield told LTFC+ when asked about a possible line-up reshuffle. “We’ve worked really hard in pre-season to get the boys’ fitness to a level, and I don’t want to see anyone dropping off that, so it’s important that everyone tries to get some minutes.
“We’ve got busy periods coming up and we believe the best route on Tuesday is to make some changes. That doesn’t mean we’re underestimating the challenge or that it’s not important to us – we want to go and win the game – but we believe that having fresh legs on the pitch will be crucial to that.”
Among those in contention who have started on the bench for the opening two victories over AFC Wimbledon and Peterborough United are Mark McGuinness, Zack Nelson, Lamine Fanne and James Shea.
McGuinness, in particular has been edging back towards fitness after suffering with an illness in pre-season. Bloomfield said: “He missed near on two weeks with an illness virus, so he’s been in his bed, he’s been in a hotel room in Slovenia, then we had to fly him back and he’s been at home.
“He was really quite rough for a bit and he lost some weight. We just had to give him time to build his body weight back up, build his fitness back up and sharpness. Mark’s gone and done another hour again today and he’s getting a lot closer, which is great for us. He’s a big character, a big player.”
There’s also a group of players that featured for the under-21s last week to sharpen their fitness, including new loan signing from West Ham Gideon Kodua, Tom Holmes, Marvelous Nakamba, Lasse Nordås and Jake Richards.
New left wing back signing Cohen Bramall played for Alex Lawless’ youth team at the weekend in their 3-0 defeat to Reading, while new striker Jerry Yates made a surprise debut for the senior side 2-0 win at London Road on Saturday.
“It was a tough one whether to throw him in or not,” Bloomfield admitted. “He’s not played any minutes pre-season, but he’s done a big bulk of work, so we had the evidence to suggest he was ready.”
Bloomfield is clear that every player will have a chance to fight for their shirt, saying: “Competition for places is crucial. We can’t just have 11 players that are shoe-ins and others that aren’t. If you earn the shirt and deserve to keep it, there has to be that element to us.
“I’ve always tried to be fair in my management – I don’t want to give anyone special treatment. It’s got to be a fair fight for the shirts because that enhances everyone’s competition and performance level.”
He also underlined the significance of the competition to Luton, who won the competition in 1988.
Bloomfield said: “The League Cup has a rich history at our club, we know that. Coventry away is not an easy tie or an easy draw at all, so we’re going to need energy, we’re going to need intensity on the pitch. We’d love to go there and really show ourselves in the best light.”
Luton head into the tie buoyed by Saturday’s win, though Bloomfield acknowledged there is still plenty of work ahead for his “work in progress” Hatters.
“Away from home, we have to find different ways to win games,” he said, adding: “We weren’t quite at it in the first half [at Peterborough], but fair play to the boys, we’re an evolving group, we’re a growing group. We have loads of new players trying to find the exact pieces of the jigsaw and how we want to go and play.”
The Hatters’ last faced the Sky Blues in the League Cup in 1998, with Town emerging victorious, 2-0. Town also beat City 3-1 on their way to lifting the trophy ten years earlier. Their most famous recent encounter came at Wembley in the 2023 Championship play-off final, which Luton won on penalties to reach the Premier League.
With changes expected and fringe players pushing to impress, Bloomfield will hope his side can combine freshness with focus to plot another path back to the home of football.
1 Trackback / Pingback
Comments are closed.