Bradley reveals a number of Luton players were touch and go to make Rovers decider

Luton defender Sonny Bradley revealed that a number of players were touch and go as to whether they would make the Championship decider against Blackburn Rovers last Wednesday.

The Hatters finally brought the curtain down on their 2019-20 campaign at Kenilworth Road needing a win to make sure they would stay in the second tier next term.

They managed that courtesy of two own goals plus James Collins’ penalty, but did so with a patched up defence, after a punishing schedule of nine games in just 33 days.

Bradley said: “Fair play to Simon (Parsell) our physio and Chris (Phillips), they work incredibly hard with the players.

“After the Hull game, I knew Pottsy (Dan Potts) was struggling, he couldn't play, Cam (Cameron Carter-Vickers) was 50/50 too.

“It was literally just a case of seeing how he woke up on that morning if he could play and he was injured, but he played as he knew how much we needed him.

“The same with Matty (Pearson), as Matty from what I got told, he was meant to be out for six weeks.

“So when I’ve seen him on the squad sheet, that wasn’t him on the bench, but part of a 21-man squad, I thought, ‘this is a bit strange.’

“I spoke to him and he said, ‘Sonny I’m still struggling, but I've said to the manager, if I can get on the last five, last 10, I can win a few headers, or be part of that defensive block and make a difference, then I’ll go on the bench,’ and that’s exactly what he did.

“It was a really good decision from the manager to put him on in the end as when you look back at the game, he won some crucial headers.

“They went with two big men up front with Danny Graham being the target man and Matty handled him really, really well.

“If Matty did not come on, win those headers as we saw with the second goal, a couple more of them and they could have scored and we could have got relegated.

“That's what Matty’s about. People know I’ve got a good relationship with Matty and I can't speak highly enough of him.

“He's an outstanding character and I think we're lucky to have him at this club.”

It wasn’t just those two who were struggling either, but Bradley revealed that the amount of games played had begun to catch up with himself too.

He managed to not let on to the rest of the players though, adding: “I didn’t change too much to what I normally do in any game to be honest as I felt by doing it that way, it would keep the boys relaxed.

“In the dressing room that we have, there are leaders, not just myself because I wear the armband, there are leaders in that dressing room.

“But as the captain, I’ll be honest, inside I was feeling the pressure, I was feeling the strain.

“My body was tired, that was the most amount of games I’ve ever played throughout my career in one time, so going into the game I was tired, I didn’t feel too good to be honest.

“But as a captain of the team you can’t show anyone that.

"It was important that I got the message across that I was confident and I was ready and I was telling the players, that was the best I’ve ever felt in my life.

“By doing that you project confidence into the boys and that’s what I thought I got from the first whistle.

“It was just a case of saying to them, 'look lets max out, anything you’ve got left in your body, let’s just give it everything and if you do max out and you can’t run anymore, I think we have the best bench in the division, so if that’s the case, we can make changes and we can win the game that way.'

"Throughout the season, a lot of our wins, even results, have come from players coming on, like you saw against Hull as well, with Kaz (Kazenga LuaLua), so nothing much changed.

"The way I was talking, if anything, I was telling the boys I was feeling a lot better than what I actually was.”

Hatters don't have too long to recharge their batteries now though, with the season starting up again on September 12, but Bradley feels a rest is long overdue, particularly after having to remain fit when the campaign was suspended for three months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

He added: "It's two weeks off, time to wind down, as a lot of people don’t recognise that we’ve been going at it now for over a year.

"Some people might look at the lockdown and then think we were resting, we weren’t resting.

"Like most people, we were in our houses, we couldn’t leave the house, and we also had an hour to train as well, so we had a full training schedule.

"Through all that we had to keep fit and fair play to the boys, we came back for the restart, everybody to a man was in great shape.

"I’ll be honest, I didn't know what the players would be like as I know that some players were suffering mentally and a few little niggles physically.

"So when they came back I wasn’t sure what they’d be like, but full credit as we hit the ground running.

"The boys' discipline during the time we were off had a massive contribution to us staying up, so well done to the boys for that."