Good news for Luton as Town quartet are declared fit to face Leeds United

​Luton defender Amari’i Bell has been declared fit for tomorrow night’s trip to face league leaders Leeds United at Elland Road.​

The Jamaican international had been down to start Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Hull City only to have to pull out a few hours before the clash due to an unspecified injury. Although Bell has suffered this term with hamstring problems, thankfully it wasn’t a recurrence of that, as the 30-year-old will be back in the squad once more, with boss Rob Edwards saying: “He’s fit. It was a bit of a strange Achilles injury.

"He was in a lot of pain on the day but he’s recovered well and he’s available which is good for us. He’s been a little bit stop-start and then we’ve planned for him in on the weekend and we’ve had to change it, but the boys did great. That was good then, but the squad is stronger with him in.”

There was also good news on the trio of players, Shandon Baptiste, Reece Burke and Tom Krauss, who were all substituted at various points of the second period against the Tigers, while Jordan Clark is also available again after completing his one match ban against Hull, as Edwards continued: “It was more us being proactive and they were starting to feel things. Shandon was cramping up, Burkey even at half time was saying, ‘I’m not going to be able to last all of it,’ the lads are being honest. We want them to be able to get through it and push as much as possible, but we don't want to break people either, so all the lads who came off that are fine."

With Town having suffered so badly with injuries during their Premier League campaign and also at times this term, then speaking truthfully about any possible ailments is something that Edwards is after, as he said: “We want honesty. If we’re asking them how they are, we do genuinely want to know. As if they’re going to be in some pain, we expect that and to then push through, but if it’s something that’s going to restrict you or cause something long term then we need to know about that.”

Following tomorrow night's trip to Yorkshire, Luton are back on the road at the weekend as they head to Norwich City, so Edwards confirmed he would look to rotate his squad accordingly while going all out for a positive result. He added: “What we’ll do is we’ll try and pick what we think is the best team for this game, and then we’ll do exactly the same for Norwich in a couple of days time after that. So it won’t necessarily be based on energy levels or fitness, it will be who can do that job, what job do we need and go off that.

"I think there will be changes in both games, but not wholesale and not just based off energy. It might be one or two who because of the amount they put into the first couple of games, they can’t be going again, or it’s a risk for him to be going again, but what we’ll pick is the team we think is best suited to go and win. That’s our aim in both games. We know how difficult both of them are but that’s our aim.”