Al-Hamadi has a chance of making long-awaited Town debut against Rovers

Striker Ali Al-Hamadi is in with a shout of finally making his hotly-anticipated Luton debut during their the FA Cup first round clash against Forest Green Rovers this evening, a tie which will be featured live on BT Sport.

The 23-year-old moved to Kenilworth Road from Championship outfit Ipswich Town on transfer deadline day, when previous manager Matt Bloomfield was in charge, but is yet to even figure in a match-day squad due to a calf injury that he suffered ahead of joining, his length of absence one of the main reasons Town were able to get the deal over the line. It’s been all change since then though, Bloomfield replaced by former Arsenal U18s boss Jack Wilshere, who admitted last week that while he couldn’t wait to get the Iraq international involved in a match-day squad, he wouldn’t be rushing him back too soon.

However, it might well be that tonight’s the night though, as speaking yesterday, asked if he had any players back for the contest, Wilshere said: “Ali’s close, I’ll have a conversation with the medical team to see how available he is, but it’s good to have players back, good to keep adding them back. They add more competition, they add more quality in training and we need that. We’re going to need everyone from now until the end of the season.”

With Town having a free week after the fixture, not playing again until heading to League One Stockport County next Saturday, then it’s clear that Wilshere wants to go with as strong a side as he possibly can to ensure Luton are in the hat for the next stage. He continued: “Of course we want to win and we’ve got an opportunity where we haven’t got a game for eight, nine days after, so we want to respect the competition.

"We definitely respect Forest Green and I’ve played so many times against teams in lower divisions and I always say the biggest difference in my opinion is their ability to play at intensity. If you give them time and space they’ll hurt you, they’re good players, they’ll find passes, they’ll run in behind you. They’re fit, so we have to make sure that like I always say, we’re in a fight and we win that fight, then when we get the ball, we don’t give it away too easily.

"I said it to the players the other day before the Northampton game, I was stood in the dressing room and I just said ‘I wish I was you, I wish I was you and had the opportunity to go out on the pitch and to have loads of passion and to have loads of hunger,’ and that was an away game. So imagine Friday night, FA Cup, the first game, BT’s there, it feels like a little bit of a throwback and they’ll definitely be passion for sure.”

Having beaten Northampton 1-0 at the weekend, Wilshere then rang the changes for Tuesday night’s 3-1 Vertu Trophy success over Brighton & Hove Albion U21s, nine of them in fact, only Gideon Kodua and Cohen Bramall keeping their place. One of those who came in, Jerry Yates, notched his third and fourth goals of the season to move clear at the club’s leading marksman, as the Town chief admitted he and the rest of his team-mates did their chances of selection no harm at all, saying: “I said at half time to the lads and before the game, I want the energy, I want the passion, I want the pride and I think he (Yates) was the one who started that off.

"Energy is transmitted through the team and when he’s on the first line, pressing the way he is, coaching the way he is, and we’ve got young players on the pitch looking at him doing that, he showed some nice bits of quality as well when he was played into. Of course for him to get two goals is good for him, good for the team and we need him.

"I said to the lads, if we want to build something and we want to be a team that gets promoted, what happens in good teams and good environments is when you change players, which will happen throughout the season, injuries and loss of form, then there’s no difference. There’s no difference in quality, no difference in intensity, and I think you can see the unity for those players to step in as at times it can be tough, some of them haven’t played as much, but I thought they were good, they showed what they can do.

"We didn’t want to concede the way we did, but again there’s tired legs on the pitch, players who haven’t played as much as we wanted to keep them on the pitch to go through that, so they get fitter for it. There will be times this season where the team changes, so we have to maximise these opportunities. We want to lift the levels in training, get the players fitter and stronger but there’s no better time to do it than in a game. Training’s one thing, but experience in games, getting fit that way is better.”

For Wilshere himself it will be an incredibly proud moment too as he takes charge of the Hatters on home soil in a competition he clearly cares deeply about, having won it twice as a player with Arsenal in 2014 and 2015. He added: “I was saying to my wife, it seems like the last two or three weeks have been a little bit of a dream as you go from really, really wanting an opportunity and waiting for it and then all of a sudden all these things happen. Walking out was the proudest moment and then my first win, that felt again like the proudest moment, so all these things keep happening.

"I’m enjoying it, I’m really, really enjoying it and trying to take every challenge as it comes and try not to think too much about it beforehand, just try and let the moment happen, but it will be a night. I coached in the Youth Cup as well, which we lost in the final, that was one of the worst days in my career. So to sit on the side in such a historic competition, a traditional competition that I grew up watching, Harry Redknapp coached my team (West Ham) and now I’m in a position where I’ll be sitting there coaching, so really proud. Hopefully, first FA Cup tie, we’d like it to be the first win as well.”