Manager Rob Edwards is unconcerned by Luton’s defensive injury merry-go-round as the fitness of Gabriel Osho and Reece Burke is assessed ahead of Saturday’s visit of Swansea City, despite the end of a seven-game run without conceding from open play in midweek.
Osho limped out of Tuesday’s 2-2 draw with Millwall, while Burke managed just 55 minutes of Saturday’s 1-0 win at Birmingham, while Dan Potts will be out for several weeks and, in midweek, Sonny Bradley was named in the match-day squad for the first time since November 1.
Luton will aim to do the double over Swansea on Saturday after a 2-0 win in Wales back in August, but they may have to do it with more changes at the back.
The Hatters boss said: “Defensively, we’ve got few few niggles. We’ll see how they are again tomorrow. So we’re looking after him. Obviously we’ve got Burkey and Gabe but we’ve not made any decision on them yet. We’re hopeful, so we’ll see about them tomorrow.”
Last weekend’s match in Birmingham saw Dan Potts pull up in the warm-up, so it meant Town had to move Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu into the backline for the final 35 minutes, once Burke departed.
Potts will not be available for a while, with Edwards saying: “It’s still not quite right yet, so he’ll probably be a couple of weeks I’d have thought, but it’;s not like a severe one where we’ll be missing him for a real prolonged period of time.”
Mpanzu joined Luton as a defender before being converted to a midfielder, but when asked if the DR Congo international could be a makeshift solution, Edwards said: “It’s an option as well. It’s not it’s not something I’ve considered so far right now. That was obviously an in-game option. But we can go that way, we can change shape.
“There’s loads of different options that we’ve got, whether it’s personnel or whether it’s changes to the shape of the team. So, I’m not concerned. We’ve got lots of different ways that we can go about it. Pelly was a really good option for us in the Birmingham game, during the game.”
Club captain Bradley was named on the bench for Tuesday’s Millwall clash, but he didn’t make an appearance despite Osho’s injury as Edwards switched to a back four and introduced Luke Berry, who eventually got the leveller.
But though the centre half has not featured since a nasty ankle injury sustained on November 1, Edwards doesn’t believe Bradley will need reintroducing slowly.
He said: “That obviously would be the case normally, but the players these days are very fit and once they’ve been back in training for a while, there’s a lot more science behind it these days.
“You can’t recreate a game if you’re not playing a game, but you can do a lot of the work that recreates the kind of running, the tempo of the running the speed of it. If Sonny is needed, he will be ready.”
Despite the ever changing backline, it took an Ethan Horvath goalkeeping error and a goal that should have been ruled offside for Millwall to finally breach a Luton backline that had not conceded from open play in the Championship since the 3-2 defeat to West Bromwich Albion on Janary 14.
“I think it starts from the whole team,” said Edwards of Town’s defensive strengths. “It’s a real unit. It starts from the front. The lads value pressing and working really hard when they’re without the ball.
“They know that if we lose the ball they’ve got to react really quickly. The phrase we’re talking about at the minute is not breaking that chain. So, if someone goes to press, we work together, so it’s got to be a unit.
“But whoever’s come in on that backline has performed really well. But they value defending, blocking, stopping crosses and getting first contacts in the box.
“These are ugly things that aren’t that sexy to talk about, but they’re such an important part of the game because you’ve got to keep the ball out of the net to start winning football matches.
“These lads certainly value doing that and whoever we pick in that backline, they know what our standards are and what our non-negotiable are. Whoever’s come in has certainly done that very well.”
