Luton boss uses his powers of persuasion to capture Stech

The Town supremo, who had played with Stech at Yeovil in the 2011-12 season, used his powers of persuasion to ensure that the former West Ham shot-stopper will now be lining up between the posts for Luton, rather than his original destination.

On the deal to sign Stech, who was one full cap to his name for the Czech Republic and has played in the Europa League for Sparta Prague, Sweet said: “That was astonishing, one of those things that falls in your lap.

“We’re so lucky we’ve got Nathan here who knows him. He was going to another club higher up and we managed to get him in.

“This is where when you start talking to Nathan about football, nobody wants to have another conversation about football.

“You start taking a player to the Brache, start talking to them about where Luton’s going to go in the future and that was him sold.

“We’re really lucky to get him. I know a number of people who have seen him recently and remember a few games against Yeovil in the Championship, but the people here, Deardo (Kevin Dearden), our goalkeeping coach, who had been involved in that important decision of finding the right goalkeeper or goalkeepers, when Marek came up, we put the list to one side and said 'that’s the one we’ve got to get.' He’s a great lad as well.”

Luton had been burnt by the loan rules surrounding keepers last year, losing Christian Walton to parent club Brighton on the final day of the transfer window in January due to an injury to Seagulls number two Niki Maenpaa.

They also saw Matt Macey recalled by Arsenal too in the final stages of the campaign, although Sweet still felt they had got it right with their recruitment policy, despite the obvious upheaval.

He added: "We wanted our own keepers last year if the truth be told, but Marek Stech didn’t come up.

“So we went for the next best option and bearing in mind, the loan rules changed last year, and the goalkeeping loan rules being a bit different, there was a fair degree of confusion.

“Not on our part necessarily, we don’t think, but a fair degree from the authorities to some extent, a lack of clarity about it.

“So had that been this situation this year and we’d known what we know, we probably wouldn’t have gone down the route that we did.

“We were given assurances that Christian wouldn’t be recalled, but football’s football, something we’ve learned.

“I don’t think it’s a decision we can really regret, as I think we did the right thing last year at the time. Because we actually had in the end, two, three very, very good goalkeepers, and we wouldn’t be adverse to having one or two of those back.

“But in Marek we’ve got someone, he’d like to make it for the long term, I know that, and lets see how it goes this season. He’s here for two years, he’s a great coup.”