Carlton Morris is hoping his Hatters experience of Wembley is better than his last visit which ended so badly he didn’t play for a season – though it’s an experience he says helped shape him.
The striker arrived at Luton in the summer from Barnsley, becoming their record signing, believed to be in the region of £2million.
And he’s lived up to his billing by blasting 20 second-tier goals in a Town shirt for the fist time since club legend Brian Stein 41 years ago.
And after two Wembley disappointments in one-and-a-half months with former club Shrewsbury in 2018, Morris is hoping it’s third time lucky in north London.
He said: “I played twice with Shrewsbury and lost the first one in the JPT (against Lincoln), or whatever it’s called now, and then lost in the (League One play-off) final (against Rotherham) and unfortunately done my cruciate ligament, which was a double-whammy.
“I joked earlier that it can’t get much worse than that, so I’ve got nothing to fear going into it.
“It’s just a way of turning quite a tough experience for me, personally, into quite a valuable one.”
Morris signed for Rotherham a month after losing to the Millers in the play-offs, but he didn’t feature at all that season and went on loan to MK Dons before Barnsley snapped up the former Norwich youth.
Though he had a decent season, scoring nine goals in 30 appearances, there was little hint that he’d go on to be Luton’s top target man.
“I’m at peace with it now,” Morris said of his Wembley injury, adding: “It look me a long while to get over what happened physically and mentally. Now I try to use it as a positive. It’s already working because I’m already in a much better headspace than I was back then.
“It changed the trajectory of my career. I remember someone telling me at the time after we’d lost the game and my knee, I think it was Steve Naismith, ‘it’s not just the seven to nine months it takes to rehab the injury. It’s actually another year on top to come back to the player that you’re going to be.
“I sort of didn’t understand what he meant at the time, really, until I went through it and thought I wasn’t myself at the time when I went to Rotherham and MK.
“I was still finding my feet and every tackle you’re sort of cringing a bit, but I’m on the right path again, so I’m quite thankful for that.”
He added: “In an ideal world, you’d go through your whole career without a serious injury. That’s a fairytale and this is real life. I’m not the only one it’s happened to, it’s happened to everyone.
“The people that it’s happened to, that I’m around, I try to give them the same advice.
“I’m just happy and in a place now where I’m going into the peak of my career in these next few years. I’m just full of excitement for it.”
And after helping to fire Luton to the Championship showpiece, asked if he envisaged his debut Hatters season ending with a shot at the Premier League, Morris said: “Yeah, to be honest, because when I signed here I was signing for a Championship play-off club, coming off the back of a successful season and I saw no reason why we couldn’t replicate that, especially with the recruitment done here.
“I’m not surprised but I’m still very humble and we’ve got a job to do.”
