Luton are still suffering the ill effects of the sickness bug that swept through the squad ahead of the 4-0 derby rout at Watford on Sunday, though boss Nathan Jones ruled out anything sinister.
Sunderland come to town on Saturday when the Hatters will aim to bounce back from their biggest defeat of the season and return to the form that saw them go seven games unbeaten for the weekend’s horror show, which was beset by a mystery bug in the camp beforehand.
Henri Lansbury, Dan Potts and Luke Berry all missed the Watford game, while captain Sonny Bradley was withdrawn at the break, but other players have also become ill since, though Jones was quick to rule out any conspiracy theories.
“It’s a bug,” he said, adding: “Henri Lansbury was the first to go down, so that could be kids at school or whatever it is. You never know.
“It wasn’t food poisoning. We’d love to blame a Watford hotel, but we couldn’t. It wasn’t. It was a bug.
“Sickness, diarrhoea, something that went through people and it’s prolonged, so it wasn’t food poisoning, where once you clear it, it’s done. It’s hung around in some of them, so that’s how we know it was a bug.
“We’ve done everything possible, deep cleaning the changing rooms and training ground. We’ve cleared it on Monday, so no-ne was in and done everything possible. It just came at the worst possible time.
“Henri was ill. Henri went down on Saturday, so we were able to clear him, but we didn’t think it had spread to anyone.
“Then, when you wake up on Sunday morning and it’s a 12 o’clock kick-off, you’re doing all your pre-match at 8:20am and people can’t do that.
“Then, it turns into a little bit of turmoil. They rallied but it just wasn’t meant to be. But there were enough players out there to have put in a better performance than we did. It just wasn’t ideal preparation.
“Some got symptoms without massive things. Someone like Sonny, for example, had it but wasn’t as bad as Luke Berry and Dan Potts, but it just depleted his energy.”
Henri Lansbury, Luke Berry and Dan Potts were the first players to get ill, missing the Watford game, and though they are now recovered, Jones will still have to pick from a depleted squad as others have come down with it.
He said: “Some are still suffering with it and not fully recovered. To be fair, we were right in the initial stages of it. It wasn’t like we had it on Thursday and people were coming out of it.
“The first one went down on Saturday and it was probably the worst day on Sunday. We’ve got a few out of it, but it’s still affecting the squad.”
Jones admitted that the derby defeat left him reeling too, but for different reasons.
“It was sickening,” he said, adding; “You have a sick feeling in your stomach, it was horrible. We know the importance, I know the importance to the people around me, know it to the fans and to everyone.
“We have been apologetic, we are sorry for that level of performance but if it had been the first game of the week and then ironically if we had beaten Watford and drawn the other two games or even just picked up one point it would have been a more respectable week and that is the irony in it.”
But Jones also pointed out that blame for the hammering at the hands of arch-rivals Watford can’t all be appointed to the sickness bug in the squad.
He said: “We can’t blame that. That affected us, and had an adverse effect on the squad but we still have to be us. We conceded after two minutes, so if you gather your thoughts and really be aggressive, we didn’t actually start that badly apart from the goal.
“We had chances ourselves, we had territory. Watford deservedly won but we did things, yes the illness affected us but our performance levels were no where near there in terms of our aggression, starting positions, boldness, bravery.
“We had three glorious chances, I’m not talking about Allan Campbell’s shot, I’m talking about Gabe Osho, Eli (Adebayo) and Carlton Morris. Three glorious chances to score goals and we didn’t do that.
“Everything we were about, we didn’t do, and that is really tough and hard to take. I don’t mind talking about it because at the end of the day it becomes an elephant in the room. It is a performance we were apologetic for and a performance that we will be working extremely hard never to repeat, not just against Watford but against anyone.
“It was an inept performance and categorically different from the two which came before it, which resulted in six points. There are extenuating circumstances, third game in a week, we have put in big shifts, played pretty much two of the best sides of the league, then came to Watford who are massively underachieving for the squad they have. It was the toughest week possible for us, and it has overshadowed a decent week.”
