James Justin says returning to hometown club Luton tonight will be emotional because he didn’t get the chance for a proper send-off before joining Leicester in the summer.
The two clubs go head-to-head tonight at Kenilworth Road in the Carabao Cup third round.
The full back is still to make his first competitive appearance for the Foxes after a big money move that broke Town’s record transfer fee received.
Justin came through the Hatters Academy after joining the club as a seven-year-old. He went on to make 114 appearances for Luton, including back-to-back promotions to get the club to the Championship.
The 21-year-old is expected to make his Leicester debut tonight and he told the club’s official website: “It’ll be emotional for me really because at the end of last season I didn’t really get a chance to say goodbye really to the fans and to my team-mates, so it’ll be really nice to see some old faces.”
He added: “I’m buzzing for it. When the draw came out, we had just finished the penalty shootout up in Newcastle and I was buzzing.
“It’s just nice to see a lot of old faces and hopefully I can get on the pitch and show what I can do.
“Every week, when I come in, I’ve got notifications on my phone still, just making sure I know what’s happening and never forgetting where I’ve come from.
“They’ve done all right and I would expect them to do even better in the coming weeks as they gel as a group, but they’re a good team.”
And Justin thinks it will be a tough test for his new club because, though the Luton manager has changed from his time at the club last term, the philosophy, he says, has not.
“They have pace to burn on the wings and I think they’ve changed their formation this year slightly, but they still play with the same philosophy and play out from the back,” Justin said of Luton.
“They don’t really like to play long as much. It’s different to the old Luton that people might remember, but they’ll be a hard team.”
