Bloomfield demands Luton become 'fitter' and 'more robust' after revealing Hatters duo are out for six weeks

Luton boss Matt Bloomfield has demanded that his players become both fitter and more robust after revealing that both Shandon Baptiste and Marvelous Nakamba could miss the rest of the season due to calf injuries.

The pair became the latest to join what has been a crippling injury list for Luton since their Premier League campaign, a big factor that has seen them go from a side who looked like they could realistically remain in the top flight, to one fighting for their lives to stay in the Championship, with relegation a massive possibility.

Nakamba, who has also missed large chunks of the season with a serious knee issue, started the 2-0 defeat at Watford last Sunday until being replaced at half time, while Baptiste came on for the Zimbabwean international at the break, but only lasted 20 minutes until succumbing to what is the latest in a long line of issues for the summer signing.

Speaking this afternoon, Bloomfield said: “Shandon and Marv are both out, six weeks, both have got soleus injuries so we’ll be missing them for a little period of time. It’s not ideal losing your two holding midfield players in the same game to the same injury, not ideal at all. We tried to look after both in between the games and do everything you possibly can, but it’s been a story of the season. It’s not easy to manage, but it is what it is and we’ll have to deal with it

“They’re muscle injuries that can happen. We took Marv off at half time as I felt like he wasn't moving very well, I didn't realise he was injured. We were getting overrun, so we had to make three changes to affect the game at half time, and then I found out that he had a tight calf then I got told he had a scan and it was six weeks out.

“We lost two players n the same game to muscle injuries, and it’s not a criticism of the medical staff or the sports sciences staff, or us and the training we’ve done, we’ve ticked everything off that we possibly can to make sure we protect our players, but it’s not easy to keep having to rotate players and change players because of injuries. We need to make sure that we have our players available and then we can.”

The pair join Reece Burke, Tahith Chong and Teden Mengi in missing tomorrow’s home clash against Portsmouth and beyond, as since Bloomfield has arrived last month, he has yet to be able to pick those three, while also seeing Jordan Clark, Alfie Doughty, Kal Naismith, Mark McGuinness and Daiki Hashioka forced to sit out fixtures too.

Having watched from afar as Luton were without double figures in terms of senior players at times last season, with players like Mads Andersen barely available all term, Elijah Adebayo and Jacob Brown also suffering injuries that didn’t happen during a game, then Bloomfield, in a far more forthright tone than he has ever displayed during his brief Hatters’ tenure to date, knows that simply cannot and will not continue with him in charge. He stated: “We saw with the busy period where we had the four games in 11 days, we got through to the Sunday and then you lose two players.

"You look after them the best you possibly can, but we need to be more robust, we need to be fitter, we’ve got to be able to cope with playing the number of games that you need to play and that has to be a focus for us moving forward as we can’t continue losing players on such a regular basis. We need to get fitter, we need to get fitter. We need to cover the ground quicker, we need to have more players that are available more often, so they can have a run of games and be able to play with the robustness and the pace and the sharpness that you need.

"We can’t be managing players through games, it’s too important. You manage people through and you lose them, it’s not ideal. I think we need to cover the ground quicker and we need to have more players training. We’ve had a lot of injuries, we’ve had too many injuries all season. We want success and success looks like having players available more often.

"It’s not about them not running, it’s not a criticism of anyone, it’s a situation we’ve found ourselves in for the whole season as a football club and we have to make sure we’re better as we need our player available more regularly. We need to make sure we can train as much as we possibly can and be as fit as we can be.”

The former Wycombe boss was also aware that implementing any drastic changes to the training schedule will be tough at this stage of the season as although he knows it won’t be until next term that Luton fans will see a real Matt Bloomfield side in action, he is doing all he can to try and make them more durable for the final 12 games.

He continued: “It’s limited training time when you’ve got the schedule of games we’ve had and some can’t train all the time so you haven’t got a huge amount of time on the grass. You’ve got matchday minus one which is usually tactical work, so it limits the effect you can have. We have to be better than that, we have to make sure we’re able to train more often and we have to make sure we’ve got more players who are more robust to play the games.

“Of course (it will be next season before bigger changes can be made), but we’re trying to do it now. We’re working every second of every day right now and it’s not about waiting for the future, it’s about making sure it happens now. We’ve just lost our two holding midfield players in the same game to the same injury, we need to make sure that doesn’t happen as we need our players available to play games.

"That’s not me digging out the medical department or anyone, those guys work extremely hard and there’s lots that go into it, but I’m here to win and we need our players available to play the games and I need to make sure that the training we do complements them and supplements them and we become a winning outfit. It’s not something that’s come in the last couple of weeks so we have to work our hardest, we have to work every second of every day to make sure it changes and changes soon.”

Finally, asked whether things need to be looked at with the recruitment going forward, especially in the case of Baptiste who was signed in the summer despite having only made 34 league starts during a pro career that began in 2017, he added: “Absolutely, there’s lots to look at. With recruitment, with the training, with prep, with everything, we have to look at ourselves as we’re not winning now. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror and we have to improve.”