Luton will assess Reece Burke today to see if he can travel to Cardiff for tomorrow’s Championship basement battle, with boss Matt Bloomfield outlining the best case scenario for the defender.
The centre half has been out of action since November and he did not travel to Burnley on Saturday, staying behind at The Brache to continue his recovery, with the manager saying he could be in line for a place in the squad for this week’s games.
This morning, Bloomfield said: “We haven’t trained yet today, so we’re training this afternoon. Give the lads some extra recovery time this morning and before we travel. So, potentially having Burkey back in the squad again, we have to see how he is. He’s been injured and he’s been ill. He missed a week, so we’re just building up his fitness.
“He did a big session on Saturday morning, so we’ll see how he is when he gets in the building today, see how his reacted from that and see where we can include him for for the trip tomorrow.
“I’ve got the numbers in the distances, but obviously I wasn’t here [The Brache] to put eyes on him, so we need to see him this morning and see how he’s reacted to that and see how he’s feeling in himself.
“Because, on top of the injury, he had a week or so where he was ill, he lost a bit of weight and just that’s just knocked him back this last little bit.
“We’ve been speaking about him for a few weeks that I’ve been telling you [media] he’s nearly there. And I thought he was, but he was ill for a week around the Watford game, so we just need to just get eyes on him today and if we can include him tomorrow night, then great.
“If he needs a bit longer, then again, we’ve got to be careful with him because he’s missed a lot of football, so we just need to make sure it’s right.”
But though Bloomfield will have decisions to make on who will replace Kal Naismith due to his red card suspension from the 4-0 defeat at Turf Moor on Saturday, it is unlikely to be Burke that replaces the Scot.
“[The] bench will be the best case scenario for us at this point,” Bloomfield said of the former West Ham youth.
“He’s not played any under-21 football, reserve football. He’s been out for a long time. We can’t let our situation and circumstances dictate that we rush someone back in if they’re not quite ready.
“As soon as he’s ready to play, it would be great to have Burkey back. He’s obviously a big player for the football club, but I can only play players who are ready. If he’s ready, then great. If he’s not, then he won’t be ready.”
Skipper Carlton Morris was an unused substitute at Burnley with a view to tomorrow night’s relegation six-pointer.
Bloomfield said: “To start off with, we obviously played a slightly different formation and it felt we felt like Eli [Adebayo] would be the best player for that, that position at that point.
“As the game progressed with ten men again, Brownie’s [Jacob Brown] been doing great recently and we wanted to get him on the pitch and at that point it was probably not the one to bring Carlton on.
“Obviously, we’ve got two other games to consider this week as well. So there’s a lot that goes into it at that point, especially having ten men and and being down away from home was a struggle.”
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