Luton will be without Reece Burke and Liam Walsh for the visit of Swansea tomorrow, plus “a couple” of other Hatters who have suffered “freakish” injuries.
Boss Rob Edwards wouldn’t reveal who the crocked stars are, almost a week after his critical remarks about players making costly mistakes that cost Town a 4-2 defeat at Norwich.
While that slump made it six straight away defeats, Luton have fared better at home, with two straight victories among three games unbeaten at Kenilworth Road.
But preparations have been dogged by more injuries, which have plagued the club’s entire calendar year.
Edwards said: “We’ve lost a couple. I won’t give you who. I can’t. You can understand why I can’t do that. We lost a couple throughout the week, which has been really disappointing.
“A couple of freakish ones. So, yeah, like we have been over this last year dealing with one or two, but I’m used to it now. Look, we’re all right. We’ll be competitive, but yeah, we’ve we’ve picked up a couple more.”
Explaining Burke’s latest injury, Edwards said: “He’s not fit for tomorrow. He’ll probably be a number of weeks, unfortunately. He’s a miss for us. He’s a really good player. But, yeah, it’ll be a number of weeks.
Walsh had suffered a hamstring issue that saw him miss out last weekend, and though Edwards said the former Swansea player was on the grass today the manager said: “He’s progressing in his rehab but not available yet.”
Last weekend at Carrow Road, Edwards admitted he was “raging” at some “absolutely ridiculous” mistakes that saw Luton, in 18 games, surpass a whole season of conceded goals on the road, the last time Town were in the Championship. He laid the blame at the feet of the players in his post-match interviews.
Asked about the days since, the manager said: “(We had a ) good meeting, early in the week. Backed up what I said. Went through some stuff, a few bits (saying) that this obviously has to improve, but also throughout that there’s some good stuff that we can take forward as well. So, a good response from the players, as I would expect. And the week then is yes, has gone well apart from losing a couple of people.
“So, (I’m) going into the game, looking forward to it. (If) we keep the consistency and the strong performances at home and try and make it as difficult a game as we can for Swansea as we have done really for most teams when they’ve come here. So, a really good opportunity for us to bounce back.
“It is a collective. We’re all in this together. And, ultimately when the lads go out there, over that white line, then we want them to go and perform and make good decisions. And if we do that, then then we know we can pick up results. We were so close to doing that last week, that was why I was so frustrated.”
His words immediately after the Norwich reverse were rare criticism for his players, having previously shouldered the blame for bad results. He said that some players keep making mistakes and hinted that some won’t play.
But asked about potential changes for Swansea, Edwards said: “It can’t be radical changes anyway. The performance, in the main, was good. There was some individual errors, you know?
“So it’s not going to be one where there’s ten changes. I mean, that’d be ridiculous. So it’s one where we want to try and build on a lot of the stuff that we actually did, but cut out the errors. So, no, not wholesale changes, but might be forced into one or two and there might be one or two others, but nothing huge.”
The away form saw, which saw them ship seven goals in two games last week, has put more pressure on getting results at Kenilworth Road, but Town have fared well against Swansea in recent seasons, where they’ve gone unbeaten in four, winning the last three.
Edwards said: “We’ve got two home games in quick succession. So we want to be able to build on what we’ve been able to create at home, which is important.
“And you want to win your home games anyway at any league, at any whatever division you’re in, any stage, you want to try and keep that going.”
Swansea have won just three of their nine games away from south Wales, though the latest of those came at the end of November at Derby.
But they will arrive in Luton as the team with the second highest possession stats in the Championship, sandwiched in between Leeds and Norwich, who Town have just lost to, on the road.
“Swansea, they’re traditionally always a team that will have the ball. Luke (Williams – manager) is a is a really, really good coach. I don’t know him but obviously know of him,” said Edwards.
“Like a number of teams that have come quite recently, they have got a real style that they’ll stick to and obviously they will cause problems. Like any team, they’ve got their way, but we’ve got to try to make it the game that they don’t want. And if we do those things well we can make it difficult.”
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