Luton have had a full back boost over the international break and now manager Nathan Jones thinks his side can start to rediscover their attacking edge of old.
Dan Potts is now finally available having injured himself at the back end of last season and suffering a setback earlier this month, while James Bree made his return from injury against Huddersfield two weeks ago.
The Hatters have also signed former Reading defender Gabriel Osho this week, though he won’t be up-to-speed for the visit of Blackburn Rovers on Saturday.
In his first spell at Luton, Jones’ team had the influential attacking talents of Jack Stacey and James Justin – who this week scored for England Under-21s – but thus far injuries have meant, barring the overstretched Rhys Norrington-Davies, that the full back berths have been occupied by the more defensively minded Martin Cranie and Matty Pearson.
With more options now available, Jones said: “The full back situation has been really difficult since the start of the season. Potts got injured inadvertently after the last game of the season. Then we signed James Bree, but we signed him late because of the negotiations. Then within two games he got injured.
“Cranie then, who is a different type of full back, has done absolutely outstanding for us on both flanks.
“Rhys started like a house on first but then, at 21 years of age, when you play that amount of games in quick succession, because we had no other one to bring in, we’ve not seen the best of him.
“Now, it’s good that we have that amount of players in that area, so that we can freshen up, have that athleticism and that attacking edge from our full backs and that’s something we work on.
“So, we feel we’ve done brilliantly to get through this spell because we’ve had a lot of players without a pre-season, game time and some have got injured, so now we feel we’re in a better place and hopefully we can show that with results.”
Potts has not featured since the 1-1 draw with QPR on July 14, but Jones said: “Finally, we’ve got the all-clear with him. It’s been a long process and frustrating for him, but we’ve managed to get a point where it’s thumbs up.
“We’re glad as he’s done well for us, Dan, it’s good to be able to welcome him back into the group.”
Bree was one of the standout performers after the first Coronavirus lockdown, admitting at the time that some “home truths” from Jones were partly responsible for his transformation from an inconsistent start to his loan spell.
His performances convinced Town to prise him away from Aston Villa, but high hopes for this term were dashed after two Championship games when a block tackle injured his knee ligament.
His return against from the bench in the last game, was moments too late to prevent Huddersfield from equalising and ensuring a share of the spoils, but Jones said: “We just needed to give him a bit of game-time, psychological game time more than anything because without being disrespectful, an U23 game, or a physical session with us, they’re pretty similar.
“So we wanted to give him just a mental boost really, he trained fully this week, so again available for selection.”
New boy Osho, has been on Town’s radar for a while and the club finally sealed a deal yesterday for the 22-year-old free agent, after he turned down a new contract with Reading.
But Jones admitted fans won’t see the defender immediately, saying: “He’ll need a bit of work first as he joined us late, for a number of reasons.
“He just needs a bit of game-time, he’s had some game-time against Birmingham and against Charlton and training today, he’s looked a lot sharper than he has in recent weeks so he’s getting there.
“He’s a few weeks off at the minute, but there’s no pressure on him to immediately impact us at the moment, he’s one that we can really have a good look at and try to develop in our time.”
1 Trackback / Pingback
Comments are closed.