Hylton desperate to make up for lost time

The 29-year-old had been suffering from a persistent injury in recent weeks, which saw him not be able to play a full 90 minutes since January 6.

Hylton, who has now been on 17 strikes since early January, was frustrated at not being able to play a part in such a crucial stage of the campaign, plus seeing his chances of equalling last season’s tally of 27 become that bit harder.

He said: “It’s not about me, but as a striker you always want to score and that’s probably been the most frustrating thing for myself.

“I’ve missed seven games and in those seven games I would back myself in this team to score. There’s still 12 games to go and I’ll do everything I can to try and beat or match that tally.

“And if not I’ll do everything I can to help this team achieve what we want and get promoted.”

After sitting out the trip to Chesterfield and then limping off against Morecambe on January 20, there had been worries that Hylton could miss the rest of the season.

However, that was never the case as far as the striker was concerned, as he continued: “No because we knew it wasn’t a hamstring as such.

“I was never worried, I never thought it was going to be a super long term thing. It was just frustrating as I want to play, I want to score and I want to help the team.

“I hate missing games, hate it so much and it was just so frustrating.

“It’s been the most frustrating seven games, since basically Newcastle really when I last played.”

On what the issue had been, Hylton said: “It was just a little inflammation in my back which was causing a neural problem and it was just coming in my hamstring every time I did a slight movement.

“I had one injection, I thought that was going to sort it and it didn’t.

“I got through training fine and came on for the 10 minutes (against Exeter) and it happened again, just cramping sharp pain in my left hamstring.

“I got the second one and that’s done the job. I joined in all this week in training, had two proper days, played and it felt fine.”

Hylton had been glad of the rest with Luton sitting out the previous weekend due to opponents Coventry being in the FA Cup and now wants to use this week to build his sharpness in front of goal back up.

He said: “That was ideal. I got to have the injection and the extra 10 days.

“Fingers crossed now that it’s sorted, I can just get sharp and get back to scoring goals.

“Although I don’t feel as sharp as I did a month ago, it’s nice to be back out there and I’m sure a good weeks training, the sharpness will come.”

Hylton’s arrival at the weekend heralded a fight back from 2-0 down to 2-2 against Cheltenham and explaining why brought on the former Oxford player and Jake Jervis for James Collins, who had just missed a penalty, and Andrew Shinnie, boss Nathan ones said: “We changed shape, so I needed one central and I wanted to bring Danny on.

“Danny central is better than Danny wide, so I did that and we brought Jake on because we wanted a bit of penetration, a bit of height, a bit more pace.

“It was nothing to do with the penalty, because of the situation we needed to do something.

“It’s one of those things, I don’t often take James Collins off, I thought him and Harry (Cornick), they lacked a spark first half, but they didn’t get the best service.

“We obviously improved after the substitutions as we scored two goals.”