Rob Edwards says there won’t be wholesale changes for the trip to Leeds United tonight, as he seeks a “complete performance” on the road to end a run of coming unstuck on their travels.
The Championship clash at Elland Road is the second of three games in a week, which has tended not to be too much of an issue for the Hatters, compared to the third game, where they’ve lost to Sheffield United, Coventry City and Middlesbrough in the last three on the spin.
Amari’i Bell has been passed fit after a Achilles pain meant he was withdrawn before kick-off in Saturday’s 1-0 home win against Hull.
That game also saw Tom Krauß, Reece Burke and Shandon Baptiste all withdrawn, but that was precautionary, so they’re all available too, and it’s only Alfie Doughty (ankle) and Reuell Walters (broken foot) that remain sidelined.
Facing the league leaders tonight will be quickly followed by another tough away-day at Norwich on Saturday, in a season that Town have won just once on the road this season.
Edwards said: “What we’ll do is we’ll try and pick what we think is the best team for this game, and then we’ll do exactly the same for Norwich in a couple of days time after that.
“So, it won’t necessarily be based on energy levels or fitness. It’ll be who can do that job, what job do we need? And go off that.
“So, I think they will be changes in both games, but not wholesale and, not just based off energy. There might be one or two, because of the amount that they put into the first couple of games, we might think, ‘right, he can’t be going again, or it’s a risk for him to go again’.
Jordan Clark returns to contention after serving a one-match ban at the weekend, while Marvelous Nakamba has just played three 90 minutes in a week for club and country, which a month ago, was a feat Edwards said he wouldn’t be able to do, having suffered a serious knee injury last term.
Edwards said: “What we’ll pick is the team that we think is best suited to go and win. That’s our aim in both games. We know how difficult that both of them are, but that will certainly be our aim.”
Leeds have made Elland Road a fortress with five straight wins there, conceding once and netting 12 times. Luton, on the other hand, have lost their last four games on the road. They lost at Plymouth and Sheffield United, then were 2-0 up at Coventry, but lost 3-2 and then got thumped 5-1 at Middlesbrough.
“We want to go and deliver a really good performance,” said Edwards of the Leeds clash.
“We haven’t done that in the last couple of away games. Not for the full game anyway. For parts of those games we have, but not for the full.
“We want to go and deliver a complete performance. We you know, that won’t guarantee a win, but that’s what we’ll be aiming for.
“Full commitment, work-rate, resilience and all of those things that we’ve been speaking about, that we’re going to need because it’s a great place to go and play this.
“I’ve loved going up to Elland Road in the past, and I’ve been there as a player and as a coach. You know it can be a really noisy, hostile environment, but let that bring out the best in us.”
Asked if Town will need to try and quieten down the vociferous Leeds support, Edwards said: “We did that well a couple of weeks ago at Middlesbrough for the first 30 minutes. We did it well.
“We’ve got to start, have a strong middle and have a good end. And we weren’t able to do that last time, so that’s got to be our aim. We’re not going to keep them quiet for the whole period of time, but when we’re defending and defending low, it’s really dig in and show that character and that fight and do things better than even than we did on Saturday as well.
“Like I said after the (Hull) game, we had too many crosses in and it was one or two moments there that we’ve got to be better.
“We’ve gone through that, shown that, worked on it, and hopefully we can be better in those areas as well.”
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