Hylton ready to play through the pain at Crewe

The Hatters forward missed last weekend’s FA Cup exit at Accrington Stanley after a rib injury suffered in the 1-0 defeat at Portsmouth recently.

He was unsurprisingly left out of the Checkatrade Trophy squad in midweek too, but speaking the press today, declared his intentions to be available for Luton’s trip to Gresty Road.

Hylton said: “It’s a little bit sore, just bruised ribs or bruised muscles, I’m not too sure, you’d better ask the physio.

“I’ve trained today and I’m going to want to play on Saturday. I don’t know what the manager’s going to do, I’ve been out for a little while, but I’m ready and I want to play.

“If you look at it in a positive way it was a nice little rest (against Accrington). It’s horrible sitting at home, I’d rather than being there, so hopefully I can play on Saturday.

“But there was a game midweek and the forwards have done really well, so a nice problem for the gaffer I suppose.”

With Jack Marriott netting twice against Chesterfield on Tuesday night, plus Craig Mackail-Smith scoring too and Isaac Vassell on target late on, Hylton, who extended his contract until the summer of 2019 this morning, knows there’s a battle for the striking berths.

He continued: “Of course, and it’s healthy, it’s good.

“We’re not enemies, us forwards, those three, me, Josh (McQuoid), Zane (Banton), there’s good competitions, we push each other every day.

“Everyone’s friends, there’s no bickering or if someone’s playing over someone, we push each other to get better every day.

“If someone gets the nod over someone, we give them a pat on the back and wish them to do all the best.

“We’ll keep doing that and if the forwards are all playing well it’s only good for the team.”

On whether Hylton would be selected against the Railwaymen, boss Nathan Jones said: “He’s trained fully today, it will take a lot for him not to play, so we’ll see how reacts to everything and then we’ll go from there.”

There was good news on captain Scott Cuthbert too, who had to come off after 40 minutes against Accrington as Jones said: “Scott was more illness than anything. It was affecting his breathing, it made him go a bit light headed because he couldn’t get the amount of oxygen that he needed.

“So it was important that we looked after him early and that’s why we took him off.

“It takes a lot out of you, so we’ve given him a few days off as he was just feeling unwell and under the weather. But he’s trained fully today so I would imagine that he’ll be an option.”

Meanwhile, young defender James Justin should also be fit after he struggled to finish the match at the Wham Stadium last week after receiving a blow to the leg late on.

Jones added: “James has done a recovery session and feels fine.

“James is a young lad, so any time he gets a few bit of pain, he’s probably a little bit more preoccupied than an old warhorse would be who’s used to that kind of stuff.

“It’s just about getting his education, but he showed fantastic character to continue playing through pain and he feels better for it.

“He would have grown from it, I keep telling him, for the last probably seven years of my career I played with aches and pains and stuff because you’re never 100 per cent fit, but you learn to go through that and learn what you can and can’t. That’s all part of the education, an important one as well.”