Nathan Jones was almost apologetic for not giving fans any transfer deadline day drama, admitting that Luton’s methodical approach to doing business early was “Bavarian-like”.
Town still had a busy summer even if the last of nine new signings – Aribim Pepple from Calvary FC – came a month ago, before the season had even started.
But yesterday’s annual last-minute end-of-summer sales passed by with only three expected loans out of the club.
Dion Pereira (Bradford), Admiral Muskwe (Fleetwood) and Elliot Thorpe (Burton) all left on season-long deals, but no new faces were added.
“We’re very organised, methodical and structured here, and sometimes that can come across as a little bit Bavarian-like,” said Jones.
“We’re happy. We’ve got a very good football club with good processes. We don’t knee-jerk on a deadline day and try to jump around, we do our business early.
“Sometimes it’s not fashionable. Fans were listening last night and really wanting something to come up but we’ve done our business.
“We’ve brought in a lot of good players, but we also made a calculated gamble to keep a place open because you never know.”
The only position Jones hasn’t recruited for was the left centre back slot vacated by Kal Naismith’s departure for Bristol City, though Dan Potts’s revival as centre half has allayed any concerns there, with the promise of cover elsewhere in the squad.
Jones said: “We would have probably liked to bring in another defender, but we’re looking at it and thinking who’s better than what we’ve got?
“We could have taken a body we don’t want to do that, so we just give those ones responsibility, we’ve got two wingbacks in both positions, we’ve got five centre-halves but also (James) Bree and Amari’i (Bell) can play well there, so we’ve got good cover and good options in terms of how we do stuff.
“We didn’t just want to bring a number in, we decided to stick and it just gives us scope that if we need something, something can be done.”
That’s not to say Luton’s business is complete as Jones said: “We’ve still got an opportunity maybe to bring one in, an out-of-contract player, so we’ve left a slot open, so that’s what we’ve done.”
Thankfully, after Luton rejected an early summer bid from Wayne Rooney’s MLS outfit DC United, there has been precious little on the rumour mill around Town’s squad.
That suits Jones down to the ground and talking about transfer deadline day interest in his men, the manager said: “We had enquiries about certain things, but if someone wants to come and buy our players then they have to meet our valuation and, with it being so late in the day, we have to then find a replacement.
“We were actively seeking to get probably three of the four out on loan. We were quite prepared to keep one of them, whether that was Pereira or Thorpe, but then Pereira went out first and a good loan came in for Thorpe, so we decided to do all four.
“So, then it was very difficult for anyone to go out. We had an enquiry about one player but it was considerably lower than our valuation so we move on.”
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