Peter Kioso was loaned to Milton Keynes because he was behind James Bree and Jordan Clark in the Luton pecking order and needs more than he could be guaranteed, manager Nathan Jones has said.
The right back was a surprise exit on transfer deadline day, having made his full Championship debut and with fans expecting him to challenge for the first team this term.
Instead, Kioso has moved up the M1 on a season-long loan at the club that let him go as a youth player.
Jones said: “Was Pete going to play before Bree? No. Is he going to play before Jordan Clark? Probably not.
“When would we play Pete? We’d play Pete when we needed a proper defensive performance, because that’s what he does. He’s a fantastic defender. So, he needs to develop in certain areas.
“We sent him out to a club where we think he’s going to develop. He had a number of options, but he chose to go there and wanted to go there above others, so we’ll see.
“If Pete’s not going to get 20 games from now until Christmas in our team, then we loan him out, because others will get 20-odd games in our team.”
Despite being unable to bring any more players in on the final day of the transfer window, Town did most of their business early in the summer.
Jones said: “It was a good deadline day for us because we managed to get Kioso, a lot of people have said about that, but he needs to play lots of games and we have two wonderful right-backs here.
“Jordan Clark is as good a right-back as there is in the Championship, it is just he is an excellent midfield player and excellent right winger. When people say we haven’t got cover in that area, no we haven’t got cover, we’ve got two excellent right-backs.”
Clark is available for the trip to Blackburn Rovers after being stretchered off in the 3-2 defeat at West Bromwich Albion last month, with Jones confirming that it wasn’t concussion that had kept the versatile player on the sidelines, it was a cracked bone from his collision with Baggies keeper Sam Johnstone.
Pull the other one.