Hatters boss expects Lansbury to be fit for Baggies trip

Town midfielder Henri Lansbury is expected to be fit for this weekend’s trip to West Bromwich Albion despite going off at half time during Tuesday night’s 3-3 draw with Huddersfield Town.

The 31-year-old started a third successive game for only the third time in his Luton career in midweek, but was withdrawn at the break, with Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu coming on.

Giving an update on Thursday afternoon, boss Nathan Jones didn’t think it was anything serious that will keep the former Arsenal, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest player out when Town head to the Hawthorns, as he said: “To ask big shifts off him for two 90 minutes is big.

“We felt we needed a bit more aggression, a bit more power on there and that’s why we made the changes as he was struggling a little bit.

“He had two games in quick succession, coming back from injury, not having a full pre-season, it was always going to be tough.

"So we had a word and thought if we were going to give him 10 minutes and then make a sub, but at half-time it doesn’t class as a sub.

"So we made that decision and we felt Pelly needs the minutes because he hasn’t got rhythm yet, so the longer he gets, the better he gets quicker.

“It was a decision we took, Henri wasn’t his energetic self so we felt we needed to do something.”

Luton went into Tuesday night’s game without Gabe Osho, Reece Burke, Luke Berry, Cauley Woodrow and Luke Freeman for a variety of reasons, but Jones is expecting to have more available when they head to the struggling Baggies, adding: “That is why we need the squad and that is why we recruit and we’ve added competition in all areas because they know they’re going to play.

“It’s one of those things, we’ve picked up a couple of things, innocuous things from training or from games so that was frustrating last week, but we’re in a better position than we were Tuesday.”