Nathan Jones revealed that Coronavirus played havoc with his preparations for last night’s 2-0 Championship defeat at Millwall as striker James Collins tested positive and others haven’t trained since Friday while they waited for results.
New signing Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was one of the players that hasn’t been able to work and he missed out on the squad entirely as a result, while Harry Cornick also pulled up with a groin strain to add an injury problem.
That limited Luton’s attacking options and Jones admitted his side didn’t look like scoring in an impotent performance at The Den, with top scorer Collins not now available until next Wednesday’s match against Nottingham Forest, having first had symptoms on Friday.
“He’s absolutely fine, but he’s had a positive Covid test, so you’ve got to stick to the rules,” said the manager, adding: “At the minute, we’ve got games every three days. We’ve had people that have been waiting for tests that couldn’t train, so it’s a whole new world now.
“It’s a minefield in terms of everything. We’ve been disrupted heavily in the last four to five days, which has coincided with two defeats.
“It’s not ideal, but playing every two to three days, if you have a sniffle you have to be tested. You have to wait for the test, you can’t train, you have to isolate. Anyone that’s been in contact with you, you have to come away, you have to test them and wait for those. It’s an absolute minefield.”
Jones says the rest of his squad is Covid free, having all been tested at the weekend, but he admitted he’ll have to review how they manage the situation going forward in order to prevent further disruptions.
“Everyone’s Covid free, but we didn’t know that when we did everyone’s test on Saturday and we had to wait. Some who featured tonight haven’t trained since Friday,” said Jones.
“We do the regulation tests that we normally do, but if anyone shows any sniffles, or any kind of symptoms, which can cover a multitude of viruses, in today’s world you have to isolate.
“It’s carnage at times, but this is the world we live in at the minute.
“It’s a truncated season, masses of games and obviously trying to stay safe and things, and it’s difficult.
“We have a few (who didn’t train), two or three. Because of certain things it meant we had to check, we had to test them. They were totally negative but it meant we had to test them and they can’t train.
“We have to review that because that can’t happen all the time because it’s disrupting us in what we do.
“We know the world we live in but we have to be clever in what we do. To be honest, it’s been really disruptive, obviously losing Collo on Friday.”
Explaining what happened with the striker, Jones said: “Basically, we planned everything for him, he trained fully and then he came in and said, ‘I feel sick’. So, then we had to pull him out, wait for a test. It’s the world we live in.
“As soon as you get symptoms you have to isolate. If I have symptoms now, if I suddenly developed a cough, then I won’t be here. I’d have to sit at home and wait for a test. It could be negative, but then because I’ve had that cough, if I’ve come into contact with you, you have to get tested.
“It’s the way of the world, so it’s very difficult to plan once something happens. We’ve been very good at our club and haven’t had any positives (before) and we’ve been very diligent with the work that we’ve done. It’s just that, when it happens, this week it’s been very disruptive and it’s coincided with two defeats and two not great performances.
“I don’t know if there’s a correlation with that, but we’ll have to see.”
