Brabin begins to shape his squad as Newton and Owusu move on

The former Peterborough and Brentford utility man, pictured right, spent large parts of the season injured, but recovered to feature in the Blue Square Bet Premier play-off final, netting in the penalty shoot-out.

He made 66 appearances for the Hatters, scoring four times, but released the news via Twitter on Tuesday.

Brabin said: “You couldn’t meet a nicer person off the field, but he was at the end of his contract and I needed to trim my squad.

“I made the decision to release him, but it was a very hard decision to come to.”

There are still a number of decisions to be made on the rest of the Hatters squad, with winger Claude Gnakpa’s future unclear too, but it appears Lloyd Owusu has also left the club after announcing his departure on Twitter yesterday (Wednesday).

Brabin continued: “I will be tying up all the loose ends as quickly as I can. Claude’s one of those and I’m just getting hold of everyone, seeing which players I want to offer contracts to and those I want to release, so I will be doing that.”

One player who won’t be moving to Kenilworth Road is midfielder Steven Beck, who was quoted this week stating Brabin was interested in acquiring his services.

That’s a no-go according to the Luton boss, who said: “I think people are putting two and two together.

“When I was at Cambridge, he was someone we looked at to possibly bring in.

“I do know the lad, but maybe he’s got his wires crossed on that one.

Another player linked with a move is striker Chris Holroyd, who was with Brabin at Cambridge and is now a free agent after his release from Brighton.

Brabin continued: “Chris I had at Cambridge and again, people are putting two and two together.

“I haven’t really looked at any players or tapped up any players so far, I’m just concentrating on getting my squad heading in the right direction.”

After taking over from manager Richard Money in March, Brabin was confirmed on a permanent basis last week, signing a two-year deal and is thrilled about leading the Hatters to a hopeful promotion/.

He said: “I was delighted and it was a shame it had to be announced after losing in the play-off final.

“I genuinely hadn’t been thinking about my future, but am glad the club have showed faith in me and I’m just looking forward for the season to start now.

The boss was also unaware of any follow up to his sending off at York City in April after North Yorkshire Police confirmed officers were investigating the incident last week.

He added: “I’ve heard nothing from them so far about that, it’s all just rumours really.”