Luton host Wycombe Wanderers for the first time in the Championship this afternoon, aiming to bounce back from their first league defeat of the campaign last week to arch rivals Watford.
But while that was the first meeting with the Hornets, Town have lots of recent history with Wanderers, having played them in every division of the Football League, since returning from the non-league in 2014.
Here’s the rundown of the big talking points and what Nathan Jones said in his pre-match press conference.
Jones wary of Wycombe’s poor start
The Chairboys have begun their first ever season in the Championship with three straight defeats without scoring a goal and conceding 8, including a 5-0 drubbing by Blackburn Rovers.
Jones said: “It’s a big gulf, it’s a bigger difference than League Two to League One because we were confident if we recruited well in League Two, we would go straight through League One which we did. That’s not taking anything lightly but we felt that.
“When you come to the Championship, it’s a different animal. For me, it’s possibly the sixth best league in the world, in Europe definitely. There are some real top leagues in Europe but this is the best second league in the world, but it’s probably arguably sixth or seventh best league in Europe.
“There is going to be quality, you’re going to get punished but sometimes it takes time to adapt. Gareth (Ainsworth – Wycombe boss) has done a wonderful job there.
“They have players that have probably not played at that level, similar to Luton, we’ve had a few. It takes time and what we have to make sure is they don’t adjust playing us.
“We’re only concerned with us and the start we’ve had and the start we want to continue, that’s all we can concentrate on. We know it will be a tough game because they always are but we will be well prepared.
“We have experience of Wycombe and of real battles, through all three leaguers now and we’ll have watched their recent games, so we know what tests were going to come up against and I think we have a decent record against them.
“We’ve only lost once since I’ve been where in six or seven outings, and I hope that continues because it will be tough, tough game. Championship are tough games, against Wycombe it’s an even tougher game because of the rivalry we’ve had, and it’s the next game.
“I don’t know that they have got low confidence. Results haven’t gone for them but I don’t know if they’re low on confidence. Gareth has a knack of getting that group to do things for him.
“Realistically, they probably went into post-lockdown as one of the out of form teams. They were sliding down, Peterborough were on their way up, but Gareth somehow rallied them, got them promoted against good sides. Against a good Fleetwood side and a good Oxford side.
“So, I don’t know that they are low on confidence. Yeah, results haven’t gone for them, but they’re in a new league, so we don’t know how they are.
“What we have to do is make sure that we are right at it, that we are the best version (of us), and if their best version of them is better than the best version of us and we attain that, then I’ll have no complaints.
“At the weekend, I’m not sure Watford were at their best and Luton were nowhere near their best and then the disappointment creeps in. But then you have to analyse that and see why, and we did.
“We hope that we can rectify that this week.”
Rea return
Defensive midfield lynchpin Glen Rea has missed the last two games after being withdrawn due to lightheadedness at half time of the 2-1 win over Derby County.
Jones said: “We had to go through protocol so if selected, Glen is available because protocols have now all been met which we had to do.”
Injuries in defence
Luton will be with centre back Tom Lockyer, right back James Bree and Dan Potts, despite the left back returning to training on grass this week.
Lockyer has only featured in the Caraboa Cup this term, since signing from Charlton and he’s missed out on an international call-up for Wales this week.
Jones said: “We’ve had to pull him out….. he’s not fully fit for us yet so basically if he goes away with Wales and plays then it will be detrimental to us. Even though I’m a Welshman we have to come first.
Something we had to, rectify something so we had to make a decision, do we persevere or do we just pull him out of the game this week and be ready for the game against Stoke so it’s just a sensible one really, sometimes these decisions have to be made. If it was two games from the end, he would have still been available because we would have persevered with it but it’s not, we’re three games in and haven’t had a proper pre-season so again, he is one that is playing a little bit of catch up. We’ve got people here who are further ahead in the preparation than him so it’s just a logical one.
Bree hasn’t featured since the 2-1 win over Derby and the manager confirmed: “He opened up his medial (knee ligament) so it’s a tricky injury, it’s not a bad one but a tricky one. It’s really sad though because he’s playing catch-up with us anyway and we had to integrate him, to do that just sets him back so it just delays everything. It is what it is but that’s what happens when you cant get everyone in on day one. These things happen but that’s the nature of the beast.”
Dan Potts is yet to feature this season, with Jones admitting last month he’d suffered a ‘comedy’ injury. Ahead of the Wycombe clash, he said: “(He’s) still a good looking fella but apart from that, not quite ready yet! He’s on the grass back training so he’ll be far closer when we come out of the international break but probably a game too far for him at the minute.”
Will Luton have a new centurion?
Centre half Matty Pearson will mark his 100th game for the Hatters if he features against Wycombe, though Jones was a little cryptic as to whether he will play.
“I didn’t actually know it was 100th. (It) may put a spanner in certain things, but it’s one of those things, but he’s done fantastically well regardless of whether he makes his 100th appearance on the weekend or not.”
Jones signed Pearson from Barnsley two years ago and he said of the defender: “He’s been wonderful, he really has, been wonderful in everything we do.
“We brought Matty in because we’d watched him at Accrington a load, we tried to get him when he was at Accrington, but Barnsley were in a higher league than us at the time and got him.
“But he’s been excellent, he’s brilliant, he is match tempo when he’s playing pool, he’s match tempo when he’s actually training, he’s exactly the same, so he’s been fantastic.”
Jones outlined just what sort of character Pearson is, as he played through pain to help the Hatters beat relegation last term.
“A normal human being would have missed games,” said Jones, adding: “Trust me, he had a bad tackle in training and he should have missed six to eight weeks and after 10 days he said ‘I want to try it’ and we did.
“And lucky we did, because he was in so much pain going into the day before Blackburn, and then he came to me and said ‘adrenaline will get me though’ and lucky enough it did, we brought him on for the last 15 minutes and he was outstanding.
“The amount of pain he was playing through, was ridiculous and that’s Matty Pearson, that just sums him right up, whatever he has deficiencies in, his stand out characteristic is he’s an absolute warrior and that’s why we signed him.”
