Graeme Jones revealed the key to keeping fringe players like George Moncur and Luke Berry engaged was telling them he’d never put them ‘outside of the circle’.
The speech seems more out of the playbook of Robert De Niro’s character in cult classic movie Meet the Parents, but it appears to have worked as the duo returned to long-awaited action during Saturday’s remarkable 2-1 late comeback victory over Wigan, with Moncur grabbing the headlines late on.
His super sub appearance was his first game since September, while Berry was handed his debut Championship start in the number 10 role left open by Izzy Brown’s hamstring injury.
Jones says he laid the groundwork for achieving this squad harmony early in his reign, when he outlined his method for maintaining a tightknit group.
Jones said: “Right at the beginning of the season, I said to every player that, ‘the type of coach I am, I believe you can improve. Everybody’. Sometimes temporary, sometimes permanent, but I said, ‘these are my rules of the circle, I’ll never, ever put you outside of the circle. Never. I’ll work with you, I don’t care what the situation is, I’ll work with you. Only you’ll put yourself outside the circle by how you behave, professionally or not.’”
Moncur has said he respected Jones’ reasons for not utilising him, citing a need to improve his defence work, while Berry has said something similar.
Jones added: “They’ve never put themselves outside the circle, not once, because their contribution has been there, whether they’ve been playing in the 18 or not. For me, that’s how I want to run a football club. It means it’s a healthy football club.
“Their behaviour has been one that Luton Town should be really, really proud of. It will see them through all situations. When you see the game rewarding them the way it did at the weekend, it gives you a great deal of satisfaction.”
A winning goal deep into injury time was Moncur’s just desserts and, referring to the midfielder’s honest comments about his time on the sidelines this term, Jones said: “In George’s case, I’ve never doubted his quality but, in this league, if you’re not switched on, off the ball, we’ve all see what can happen.
“That has been my only question mark with George because, physically, he’s fine. Mentally, he’s an absolute dream. Technically, you’ve seen his natural talent, it’s just the off-the-ball stuff and he’s still a work on progress.
“I can get to work more with him now because he’s playing in the team, but international breaks have been quite significant for him because we’ve been able to work with him off the ball.
“There’s no Under-23/reserve team here, so it’s very, very difficult to put it into practice a lot of the time. Even within his role on Saturday when he came on the pitch, he had two different positions to play. He adapted really, really well. It was satisfying.”
