Boss Nathan Jones claimed that Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s performance in last night’s 1-1 draw with Birmingham was one of the best he’s seen in a Luton shirt, with the midfielder admitting he’s been given the freedom to express himself.
While the manager felt disappointed with a point from a dominant display, he was enthused by his side’s performance levels, spearheaded by a second successive man of the match outing from the Leicester loanee.
Jones said: “The lad’s pure class. It was outstanding and as good a midfield performance as I’ve seen at this football club. And, to be fair, I’ve seen some very good ones, because we’ve been dominant here for a long, long time.”
On another night the 22-year-old’s all-action display would’ve have seen him claim an assist and a victory, but Town, and in particular James Collins, found Blues keeper Neil Etheridge in defiant form.
But told about Jones’ praise for his personal performance, Dewsbury-Hall said: “That’s really good to hear obviously as a player you want to impress the manager as much as possible because he is the person that is picking the team.
“It shows that, when he has belief in you, it gives you so much confidence going into every game because you’ve got the coaches backing you, got the players’ respect and it allows you to express yourself.
“Everyone knows that in football, confidence is a massive thing so when your confidence is high, that’s when you play your best stuff.
“As I said, our confidence is really high at the moment and maybe we’re just not getting the rub of the green with one or two things. When that clicks we will be really happy and we’ll be up there.”
Speaking before the Birmingham clash, Jones revealed what caught his eye about Dewsbury-Hall, when he scouted him extensively during a loan spell with Blackpool last term.
“Whether he can transfer that into the Championship, you don’t exactly 100 per cent know,” said the Town boss, adding: “What you do is you trust your judgement, you look at a player and you think is he athletic, can he handle the ball, does he show good attitude?
“Is he a progressive passer, all these things we look for in a midfielder and there is plenty more to come from him as well because he is starting early in his career.
“He played however many games it was for Blackpool, he’s played one or two in Leicester’s first team. This is another level but he’s come in, been a great member of the squad, he’s handled it and that is recruitment.
“(It’s the) same with Rhys Norrington-Davies, when you bring people in, you just think I like what I see, can I implement him, can I put him in our team? Will I be able to make him better? Yes. That’s what recruitment is because we very rarely buy ready made here.
“We did in terms of James Collins, Danny Hylton and Luke Berry, for example, at League Two level, but we were never looking to stay at League Two level. Even now we are very ambitious with what we want to do and we’re signing players that can make us better, make us a real strong team at this level. Not one that just survives, we don’t want that.”
