Hylton ready to go if called up against Colchester

The 28-year-old missed the whole of pre-season due to a leg injury, but had his first 45 minutes of the season on Tuesday night, playing the opening half of the 2-2 Checkatrade Trophy group stage draw with Spurs U21s.

On how he felt after a first taste of match action since May 18, Hylton said: “Yes, I’ve come through it fine. As you can imagine I’m a bit achy, but it’s part and parcel I suppose as if you felt like this after your first pre-season game it’s to be expected.

“It’s a little bit frustrating at times, seeing the the lads flying and you’ve just got to keep reminding yourself that you’re four, five weeks at least behind them so I’m playing catch up, but I’m feeling good and just glad to be back out there.

“I want to play every game, but I’m also aware that it’s going to take time.

“So I’m going to have to be patient and when the manager thinks I’m ready to go back in, he’ll put me in. When he does that I will do what I always do, try to do my best and bring something to the team.

“I won’t make any excuses, I’m a little bit behind, but I’m ready when he wants me.”

Hylton had had to sit and watch his team-mates rack up eight goals in their League Two clash of the season against Yeovil Town on the opening day and admitted there were mixed emotions involved.

He also felt the margin of victory will make other sides redouble their efforts when facing the Hatters too, saying: “It would be easy to say I was really happy, I was really happy, on the other side it was really frustrating.

“Any game you miss, you can’t help but think it’s a missed opportunity, especially when a team scores eight goals, you think what if?

“If I had played, I could have helped myself to a couple of goals, but it was a great start, probably too good of a start really.

“You don’t want to get too carried away and you might be seen as a target by other clubs.

“They will raise it even more against you after they’ve seen that scoreline, so maybe four or five would have done us better.

“But it was good and just shows the talent we’ve got in the team and what we can do against teams if they’re not up for it.

“The main thing is to not get carried away as not every game will be like that.”

Hatters followed that up with a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Barnet last weekend, as Hylton said: “The 8-2 was brilliant and the performance against Barnet, anyone who’s played there will tell you, it’s a tough place to go.

“They work so hard, especially after that 8-2, teams are going to up their game and I thought they did that.

“They made it really hard for us to play, the pitch was sticky, but slippy, the ball was sticking, but players were slipping on top, it was a really difficult game.

“We’re not going to be able to play this passing, beautiful game for 90 minutes every game, so we had to dig in at times.

“I thought we did that, it could have probably gone either way in the end, both teams weren’t creating too much, but we could have nicked it, they could have nicked it, on the day a 0-0 probably would have been fair.

“As it was they went on to score a good goal and then won.”

Town will now look to put that result behind them against a U’s side who beat them twice last season, as Hylton added: “They’re a good team, but like any other game, on our pitch if we take care of ourselves, I’m sure we can go and get a good result.”