James Bree admitted it was a “massive compliment” for Nathan Jones to compare him to former Hatter Jack Stacey and said some “home truths” from the Luton boss were what he needed to hear to improve.
The Aston Villa loanee has looked a much-improve player since the restart, though he missed the first two games against Preston and Swansea, which he said “lit a fire” in him to get back in the team.
Jones revealed earlier this week that he’d had a heart-to-heart with Bree about parts of his game that the boss felt didn’t mean as much to the youngster as they should have.
The Welshman also said that the defender reminds him of Stacey, who made the right back berth his own in two seasons at Town, earning a multi-million pound move to Premier League Bournemouth last summer.
“That’s a massive compliment. I didn’t actually know he’d said that,” admitted Bree.
“But looking at what him and James Justin have done, going into the Premier League, obviously that’s something that I’m aiming to do.
“Whether that’s when I go back or in the future in my career, but I want to play as high as possible.
“In this day and age, full backs have got to attack as well as defend and I think it’s always something I can do, it’s just having the desire to get forward and do it. I think I’ve really got that at the moment.”
Bree won the penalty that saw James Collins give Luton a lead against Queens Park Rangers, only to draw 1-1 and miss the chance to move out of the Championship bottom three.
But having had large spells filling in at left back before Covid struck, the full back hadn’t lived up to his potential. So, faced with an indeterminate amount of time to himself after football was suspended in March, Bree spent it working on himself and his game to come back firing when football resumed last month.
“The lockdown gave me a lot of time to look at what I’ve done at the start of the season,” said Bree, adding: “It’s difficult when you’re playing, you don’t have much time to work on your body and stuff like that.
“I went away, worked really hard and with Nathan coming in, believing in me but telling me a few home truths that I think I needed to hear, I think I was waiting for someone to tell me, really, and I’ve taken it on board.
“I knew I was ready to come into the games anyway, but I think it’s given me that extra push to kick on and do well.
“For me, I just needed someone to come in and talk to me. Graeme (Jones), before, we’d spoken a lot and I think I could’ve done more for him.
“Obviously, I was playing left back and I know I can play there, but it was tough for me at times.
“I’ve worked really hard over the eight to ten weeks we had off, so I knew I was in a good position to come back.
“Then, with the gaffer coming in and telling me what he wanted me to work on, I think it gave me a little goal, pushing forward.
“With me not starting the first couple of games it lit a little fire in me and I wanted to get back in the team and I’ve done well since I’ve come back in.”
Bree also said he’d been studying DVDs of his performances to work out what he needed to work on.
He said: “We’ve got games clips, like all our individual passes and defending, so I’ve gone back and had a look at that and just seen little things I was getting caught out with, or little things I was doing well but could’ve done more.
“It was just stuff like that to see what I could improve on. We had so long off, it was just about finding stuff to keep me occupied and help improve my game, and it’s helping me at the minute.”
