Luton Town’s pre-season preparations in Slovenia have been dealt a blow by illness and injury, with manager Matt Bloomfield confirming that several first-team players will miss today’s friendly due to health setbacks.
Speaking from the team’s training base, on the club’s daily Town on Tour YouTube series, Bloomfield praised the squad’s efforts during an intense week of training but revealed that defender Mark McGuinness has had to return home due to illness, while others in the camp have also been affected.
“Unfortunately, Mark McGuinness got ill and had to go home, which we’re sorry for him. There’s been a little bit of illness around, inevitably a couple of knocks. Lamine [Fanne] took one early in the week, so he’ll miss the game, which is disappointing after his two goals, but that’s football, right?” Bloomfield said.
The Luton boss admitted the situation has forced changes to the line-up for today’s friendly, with several players either set to sit out or play reduced minutes.
“It’ll mean that there’ll be a few players not playing that we probably expect to. Some of them will be on slightly cut down minutes because of the illness that they’ve been carrying during the week. But we won’t know totally until we wake up tomorrow morning,” he explained.
“Zack, for instance, started training again today. We hope we can get into an hour but it might only be half an hour.”
To help manage the squad, nine under-21 players have been flown out to Slovenia to bolster numbers. Luton have arranged a match with four 30-minute periods to ensure as many players as possible build on last week’s 45-minute run-outs and get closer to the 60-minute mark.
“Really big thanks to Alex Lawless and we’ve got nine of the under-21s coming out… we’re really thankful for Al and the boys flying out yesterday to come and help us,” Bloomfield said.
Despite the setbacks, Bloomfield remains upbeat about the camp’s overall progress.
“The lads have worked incredibly hard. The team spirit is starting to build and we’re looking forward to hopefully a good performance,” he said.
“The facilities we’ve had here in Slovenia are just incredible… the team bonding that we’ve been able to do around the training as well, I think is vital when you’re putting a new group together and you want it to knit and gel as quickly as possible,” he said.
The squad will fly home straight after today’s match, with no time to waste ahead of more preparations and a behind-closed-doors friendly on Tuesday.
“We’re driving to Zagreb tomorrow night straight after the game, straight home… day with the family Sunday and back to work,” Bloomfield confirmed. “Apologies for being late by the way. I’ve just come off a meeting with another player. We’re trying to strengthen the squad. That work won’t stop.”
Luton face AFC Wimbledon in three weeks’ time as they continue to fine-tune the squad and build momentum ahead of the new League One campaign.
