Green determined to put the hard work in to keep his place

The summer signing from MK Dons was expected by most supporters and the midfielder himself to be a regular in the Hatters’ XI this season.

However, that hasn’t been the case, with Green spending large chunks on the sidelines, as boss John Still recently criticised his efforts in training.

He was back for his first home league start against Barnet on Saturday though, impressing greatly and scoring a wonderful opening goal.

On his spell out of the team, Green said: “It’s tough to take. I thought I’d come here and play every week, sometimes it just doesn’t work like that.

“Football’s a very fickle game, people have different opinions, but he’s the manager, so I just had to try and work my way back into his plans.

“Usually I do stay after training and do quite a bit, but I think he was talking about my hard work, running stats.

“I had to play a few reserves games and I don’t think my running stats were high enough, so I’ve tried to improve that.

“We played a game against Bournemouth and I just tried to run as hard as I could.

“Sometimes when you’re not playing, you can get into a little rut when you get a little bit disappointed.

“So sometimes you need telling and he told me that maybe I need to buck my ideas up a bit and just because I came here from a higher club I don’t deserve to play.

“He’s helped me through my career loads, I’ve got to listen to him and I’ve got great respect for him.

“He’s a very good manager and hopefully I’ve shown him that I’ve worked a bit harder in training and got in the team.”

Green was eager to show his commitment to the cause, with one crunching challenge in the first half as he admitted it was a facet of the game that needed working on.

He continued: “It’s not really my game, I can’t tackle to save my life, but that one was quite good.

“I tried to do the dirty side of the game, get back and track runners, which I don’t really enjoy doing, I’ll be the first to admit it.

“I prefer going the other way, but it’s got to be done, managers want steady players now and people who can do the job.

“So I’ve got to learn that and I think that’s probably been one of my problems throughout my career, the other side of the game and that’s what people criticise.”