Sonny Bradley had hoped Matty Pearson and James Collins stayed with Luton, but he has full faith that the club’s “first-class” recruitment team will find strong replacements.
The skipper penned a new deal last month, along with Dan Potts, after two of Town’s senior stars moved on, while George Moncur, Kazenga LuaLua and Harry Isted have not been offered new contracts.
Top scorer Collins joined Cardiff City, having turned down a new deal, while centre half Pearson moved back closer to home with Huddersfield Town.
Captain Bradley formed a fine partnership with the Yorkshireman as Luton got promoted from League One, survived in the Championship and, again, towards the end of last term as they secured a top half of the table finish.
“It’s going to be hard replacing Matty,” said the 29-year-old, adding: “He’s a very good player at this level, but ever since I’ve been at this football club, the recruitment has been first class, for what we have to work with.
“We have to be realistic, and every window we seem to do good business, so I have no doubt that the recruitment team again will already have players lined up and will bring in some real quality to challenge for places next season.”
While Luton have been linked with a move for Hull City defender Reece Burke, Bradley says the now departed players have gone with the best wishes of the football club.
“James Collins and Matty Pearson are right up with the biggest characters in the squad and they will be a big miss,” said the skipper.
“But what I can say about both players is they’ve been fantastic servants to this football club. Their work-rate and their honesty every day has been outstanding, and they’ve deserved their moves.
“It would have been nice for them to stay, I would have loved for them both to stay, but they’ve chose to move on and I think everyone at the football club including myself will pat them on the back and wish them all the best in the future because I think that’s exactly what they deserve.
“We’ve got good centre halves in the building at the minute, I know Tom Lockyer’s been a bit disappointed this season through injury, but when Tom’s played and I’ve played with Tom, he’s been really, really good, really strong and it’s just a case of moving on.
“It’s not always easy as you do build up these relationships and you’d have seen over the last three years, me and Matty at times have played really, really well together and we’ve put down a good foundation to go and win games.
“It’s disappointing to see him go, but it’s time to move on and I’m sure the club will look at replacing Matty if they can and we might have to start building new relationships, but that’s natural in football.
“Matty being a free agent this summer, he had an option to go and he probably thinks he can go and improve his career by moving and I hope he does that as he certainly deserves it.”
