Simon Sluga has been rewarded for his clean sheet at Swansea with an earlier flight home to marry his fiancée at the end of he season – with boss Nathan Jones claiming that if the goalkeeper gets another one at Leeds he’ll pay for his wedding.
The Croatian keeper pulled off a wonderful save to deny Ben Cabango with the scores still deadlocked at 0-0, before James Collins’ header secured a morale-boosting three points to cut in half Town’s gap to safety at the foot of the Championship.
It helped lift Luton off the bottom of the table and tomorrow they travel to face leaders Leeds United, who are eight points clear in the hunt for automatic promotion.
Club record signing Sluga has been much-improved since the turn of the year after a difficult mistake-laden start to his Hatters career.
He pulled of a world-class stop late on at Wigan, in Town’s last game before the three-month Coronavirus suspension of football in March, and he’s picked up where he left off since the restart last week.
After the victory at Swansea, Jones said Sluga was due a reward for his performance and today he revealed: “It’s a private thing. He gets married in the summer so he asked to get a flight earlier than I would have liked him to so I said, ‘if you keep a clean sheet, you can go on the day you need to’.
“His partner is pregnant and he’s getting married, he’s had to change the date because of that and because of Covid-19, so just a reward for his clean sheet. If he keeps another one tomorrow, I’ll pay for his wedding!”
Sluga was former boss Graeme Jones’ marquee signing, but he’d already been part of Croatia’s World Cup squad, finishing third in the 2018 tournament.
The current Luton boss said: “I’ve known about him because he’s been here for a year. I watch a lot of football, I watch Championship football and obviously I had a big interest in Luton even when I wasn’t manager here so I know all about him.
“Training, he’s done well, he’s conceded one goal in two games so let’s hope that continues. I know he had a tough start here but at times when you’re a foreign player coming into a difficult league and in a side that was always going to be challenged at this level.
“Sometimes it takes time to settle and ideally you have that settling period. With Simon, he was rushed straight into Championship football which is very difficult. It’s one of those things, I think he’s getting better week by week, we saw that before I came in.
“I think he was excellent in the unbeaten games they had before and he’s just continued that so I want him to be secure, I want him to take calculated risks and I want him to enjoy his football and you only do that when you’re playing well.”
Sluga’s stop was part of a solid defensive display at Swansea, which hints at a greater understanding with his defence.
“That comes with time, I haven’t done anything revolutionary with Simon,” said Jones, adding: “We work on certain things day in and day out but I think he’s just had more time now with his back four and his surroundings. He’s a lot more confident and comfortable and that’s rubbed off on him.”
