James Justin’s goalscoring performance against Luton last night highlighted what the Hatters have lost when he left for Leicester, manager Graeme Jones admitted after the 4-0 Carabao Cup defeat.
Sold to the Foxes in the summer, the 21-year-old returned to his old stomping ground to make his City debut and he netted just before half time to make it 2-0.
It was a match that the classy Premier League outfit went on to win by double that margin. Demarai Gray open the scoring on 34 minutes from a corner and goals in the second half came from Youri Tielemens and Kalechi Iheanacho.
But it was Justin’s strike – after he ghosted behind Dan Potts to convert Tielemens deep through-ball – that drew applause of Hatters fans and chants of “he’s one of our own”.
Afterwards Jones said: “James Justin just shows you what we lost here at Luton, because I thought he was outstanding.
“You’ve seen James Justin’s run, that penetrating run in behind where there’s not a lot of space, but them top players don’t need a lot of space to hurt you.”
Justin didn’t celebrate his strike and Jones said: “He was so respectful. Typical of the guy. But I’ve got to tell you that you realise tonight what you’ve lost as well.
“We’ve all seen that. That’s a proper physical Premier League specimen and we lost two of them in the summer.”
Jack Stacey also left Luton to join Premier League Bournemouth and the Town boss said: “People need to understand that you don’t replace them overnight. Like I keep saying, we’ve done OK, but they are Premier League players and you can see the physicality.
“James Justin’s got no right to get on the end of that ball but because he can sprint and recover, he can do it, so it was a really interesting night.”
Despite defeat, Jones was far more content with the lessons learnt from Leicester, compared to the 3-0 Championship reverse to Hull at the weekend.
“You don’t want to lost football matches, but you have to take your hat off to the opposition,” the Luton manager said of the Foxes, adding: “They’re just at a different level and you have to accept that.
“This is the league we’ve stepped up to now and then there’s another league to go again. They are an outstanding team that Brendan (Rodgers) has put together.
“They are the third best opposition you can face in this country and there are some things I’ll definitely take from the game.”
Asked about his lighter mood compared to the weekend, Jones said: “It’s because I know I’m going to take things forward from the performance. It’s the ultimate test. There are two teams at the minute better than Leicester in the country and I would say on merit.
“There’s Manchester City and there’s Liverpool and we’ve all seen what they can do.
“I’m not happy that we got beat 4-0 but, if you are going to lose, you have to learn. We’ve learnt against the third best opposition in the country and we’ve learnt some things that we can take forward.”
