Arsenal return as a Premier League player would be a 'dream' for Luton's former Gunners keeper

Hatters keeper James Shea admitted it would be a ‘dream’ if he could make a return to the club where he started his career, Arsenal, as a bona fide Premier League with Luton next season.

The 30-year-old had joined the Gunners’ youth team in 2007, winning the Premier Academy League and FA Youth Cup two years later, part of a side that contained current Hatter Henri Lansbury, plus ex-Town youngster Jack Wilshere, beating Liverpool 6-2 on aggregate.

He spent six years in total with the north London side, the closest he came to a first team appearance when on the bench for a handful of Champions League group stage matches and domestic cup ties in the 2012-13 season.

Shea was then released in June 2013 and in search of first team football dropped down to Ryman Division One North side Needham Market, quickly heading up a level to Harrow Borough, before being snapped up by League Two AFC Wimbledon a year later.

Following three seasons with the Dons, he left in the summer of 2017, moving to Luton and has remained at Kenilworth Road for nearly five years now, racking up 100 appearances recently.

With Town now third in the table and a play-off place well within their grasp, automatic promotion still not completely out of contention too, Shea had never thought that one day the chance of heading back to the Emirates on a level pegging with the Gunners would be a possibility, saying: "If I’m honest, no, that would be the dream come true, I can tell you that.

“I remember playing at Harrow Borough and Needham Market, where if you’d have offered me playing in the Championship, or sitting third in the Championship, I’d have bit your hand off for it at the time.

"That’s one thing I always do, whenever I’m not playing, I think to myself, I was at Harrow Borough, Needham Market in the Ryman Prem, Ryman North and now I’m involved in the Championship, it’s crazy how football can change.”

It’s not just Shea in the Luton squad who have similar stories of having to go through the lower leagues in a bid to make it to the second tier, as he continued: “Harry Cornick was working in McDonalds, Hylts (Danny Hylton) was at Aldershot, Bez (Luke Berry) was in the Conference with Cambridge as well.

"Pete’s (Kioso) another one, the boys are hungry that they want to get as high as they can.

"They want to show what they’re all about and it’s good to have players like that, it shows you how much it means to them.”

With so many of the squad still at Kenilworth from the League One and League Two days, Shea one of seven who played in the fourth tier for the Hatters, he believes it makes the current position even more special, saying: "I do, it’s been a group together for a long, long time.

"We’ve added one or two boys along the way to add that bit of quality which we need, but the majority of the boys are from when we were in League Two.

"We’ve just stayed together for such a long time, it’s like a little family really, I saw them probably more than I do my own family!"

To be actually pushing for a place in the top flight with just eight games of the season remaining wasn't something Shea had believed was possible when he decided to join the Hatters either, as he said: "Not in such a short space of time I didn’t.

"If you’d have asked me two years ago when we stayed up on the last day of the season I’d have bit your hand off for it, but it just shows how far the club has come.

"It just shows you how far we’ve come as a group, we’ve learned, we’ve adjusted, and we’ve got better as time has gone on."

One thing that has remained the same from the League Two days is the style of manager Nathan Jones though.

The Welshman had lifted Town to a League One promotion battle, ultimately finished by Mick Harford once he had left for Stoke City, then returning in the summer of 2020 to lead the Hatters to Championship survival against all the odds.

Building on that, Jones has already masterminded the club to a higher points tally than managed last year, as Shea added: "He’s stayed the same from the first day.

"I remember meeting him, the first game, I thought, 'wow, he’s brilliant for the club!'

"It was the best thing that club did bringing him back, it’s just the perfect match with the gaffer and Luton.

"It didn’t work for him at Stoke, but he’s just come back to Luton and he’s showing what a top manager he is.

“He came in after the Hull game (3-1 win before the international break) and started giving it to us as a joke saying we could have had 17 clean sheets.

"So he cares for us, cares for the players, cares for the club, wants us to all do well and he shows it in different ways to others."