Exclusive: On-loan Hull star reveals he would be open to permanent Luton move
Palmer has shone during his switch to Kenilworth Road
Luton’s on-loan midfielder Kasey Palmer has hinted he would be open to returning to Kenilworth Road on a permanent basis next season.
The 29-year-old has proved a massive hit with Town supporters since joining from Hull City until the end of the campaign back in January, as his performances on the pitch have been without doubt one of the main highlights of the last few months. Quickly becoming a firm favourite, Palmer, who still has another year left on his contract with the Tigers, had already sparked speculation that he wanted to be a full-time Hatter, when unveiling a signing celebration to the travelling fans after opening his account in tremendous style at Doncaster Rovers last month.
The Jamaican international did so again when scoring at home against Exeter City recently too, and after manager Jack Wilshere was pleased to see witness his apparent intent to remain with the club, then speaking exclusively to the Luton News about whether he has given any thought to his future, Palmer himself said: “To be fair there’s been no actual concrete conversations with the club about next season. It depends what happens at Hull, what Hull want to do, what they want to do here, where we are, what we do, I don’t know.
"Hopefully it can kind of find a solution and I can come back here next season, but to be honest I don’t know, there’s no actual concrete answer. For sure, I’m enjoying the players, being in the dressing room, coming in every day, it’s a perfect fit I think. If it can continue next season then I wouldn’t be against it, but we’ll have to see what happens in the summer. I’m enjoying being here, enjoying the team, enjoying the staff, the fans, it’s just been perfect so far. The aim was to get in the play-offs when I signed, if we fall short I’ll be disappointed, but we’ve just got to keep going.”
With the former Chelsea youngster clearly too good for the third tier that Luton currently find themselves in, there is now a glimmer of hope that should he move back to Bedfordshire, the club might find themselves in the Championship once more as back-to-back wins over Easter has seen Jack Wilshere’s side cut the gap to sixth placed Stevenage to just three points with five games left.
On the Hatters’ chances of finishing above the dotted line, Palmer, who played a key role in that with a truly outstanding performance in Monday’s 3-0 victory over AFC Wimbledon, scoring his fourth goal since joining, continued: “It was important the Easter weekend. I came back (from international duty) and it was, let’s focus on ourselves. We’ve missed a few opportunities, we’ve dropped points when we know we should have done better, but that’s kind of gone and we had to deal with the games in front of us.
"We’ve gone back-to-back and the table looks a lot better than it did before last week. There’s a lot of teams in the mix so it’s going to probably go to the wire, but we can only control what we can control and that’s just winning every game. We’ve got to win as many games as we can from now until the end of the season. If that puts us in the play-offs then so be it, if not it will be disappointing as we know we’re more than capable of getting in the play-offs with the group that we’ve got, but we’ll see.
“It was a good game, probably the best we’ve played since I’ve been here, away from home definitely. To get the second goal and then the third, we could have scored more, but overall it’s a good feeling. We just had to control what we can control, play the stuff that we’ve been trying to play all season and it paid off. I think you can see the patterns, everyone looks confident which is good.
“I think the fans can see what we’re trying to do, the way the manager wants to play. When you have days like today when it all comes together, the fans can see it, the players are feeling confident, the patterns are working and you can really see the bigger picture. You can look past the blips when we have days like today as you know what we’re trying to do and you can see it coming off in the game. Scoring goals, clean sheet, it’s been a good day and probably the perfect time going into Wembley. The fans are buzzing, players are in form we’ve just to back it up.”
With Palmer at his very, very best when taking the field at the Cherry Red Records Stadium, having only recently flown back from Mexico where he was part of Jamaica’s unsuccessful bid to reach the World Cup Finals, then having been on the bench against Peterborough a few days earlier, was one of two changes made by boss Jack Wilshere, as he and Mads Andersen replaced Nigel Lonwijk and Davy van den Berg.
Asked about the midfielder’s eye-catching display, the Town manager added: “Kasey, even over the last few days he’s still jetlagged and we’re having conversations about how do we look after him, but also his quality and his experience, he brings so many different things, especially away from home.
“At home he’s excellent as well, but his experience of the game, his know-how of the game, his understanding of when to slow it down in certain times, to get us momentum back and from the start I thought he was excellent. Probably his most complete performance, but he needs to keep it going. He needs to reach the standard and that consistency every single week. I’m happy for him, as he got a great goal as well.”