Fee was no sticking point behind Town's decision not to sign Sibbald

Craig Sibbald in action for Luton against Leicester

The cost of bringing in Falkirk midfielder Craig Sibbald to Kenilworth Road was not the reason behind the deal collapsing according to boss Nathan Jones.

Sibbald was part of the Hatters’ training camp in Slovenia and also featured in the 1-0 pre-season friendly defeat against Premier Leicester City, before Jones confirmed he was going no further with the Bairns’ player at the weekend.

It was thought that Luton would have to cough up over £200k to bring in Sibbald after Falkirk had offered a contract to ensure they would get a training development fee.

However, speaking to Three Counties Radio last night, Jones admitted Town’s board would have given him the green light had he wanted to bring in the former Scotland U16 and U17 international.

He said: “If we identify the right type of player, the club have backed me and are prepared to back me.

“With Craig, we know he is a very good player, but we also realise we’ve got a very, very good squad.

“Now when he came in, he trained with us for two weeks, had some minutes and in my opinion, in that time, he didn’t show that he was better than what we had.

“Now rather than bring another good player in, we already have good players, so the only one we bring in now have got be better than what we have in some way or ones that we can develop.

“Now we could have developed Craig, but he’s of an age where we have younger that we felt could do the same job, so it was just the strength of the squad.

“He’s a great lad, a good character, but we feel that we have as good if not better here.”