Hatters boss explains why defender Mengi didn't come on during Ipswich victory

Hatters boss Jack Wilshere has explained just why defender Teden Mengi didn’t feature in Tuesday night’s Jersey Mike’s Trophy demolition of Ipswich Town U21s despite being named on the bench for the opening group stage contest.

The 24-year-old last played a competitive game for the club on February 24, when he suffered a serious hamstring injury in the 2-1 Vertu Trophy victory over Plymouth Argyle, which ruled him out for the rest of the campaign. Mengi, who has featured 80 times for Luton since arriving from Manchester United in August 2023, also winning three England U21 caps, was then told he could leave Kenilworth Road in the summer transfer window, despite being given a squad number by the Hatters ahead of the campaign beginning.

A move away never materialised, which meant he remained in Bedfordshire once more, as Wilshere spoke about integrating him back into the first team squad after giving him a chance to get his head straight about staying put. With several of Luton’s players away on international duty this, Mengi was then named as one of seven substitutes against the young Tractor Boys in midweek, as Town went with a centre half pairing of Mads Andersen and club captain Kal Naismith to begin the contest.

Andersen was replaced at the interval, but it wasn’t Mengi who took his place, first team regular Hakeem Odoffin brought on instead, and when Wilshere made four alterations in two batches during the second period, then the player who was once named Bobbers Travel Club Away Player of the Season in Town’s Premier League campaign, remained on the bench as first Harrison Ashby and Harry Fox were introduced, with young duo Jack Lorentzen-Jones and Dawid Gawel following them in the closing stages.

Asked why it was Mengi didn’t get any minutes, despite Luton being in cruise control from the moment Jordan Clark, who went on to net a hat-trick, opened the scoring in the first half, Wilshere said: “There was an intention to play him and we had some long conversations over the last few days about it, about the risk potentially if we do play him. He hasn’t done much, he had a full pre-season, got himself into a good place and then there was a little bit of, confusion around the transfer window is probably the right word.

"He was a bit stop-start, then the beginning of last week he missed three days with an illness. We looked at his training load and we didn’t feel it was the right time to put him on to the pitch and play his first game that he’s played in ages. He probably does need to play some 21s games and let’s see, let’s see how he gets through them. He needs to play minutes, I’m very aware of that, he’s very aware of that, but he also needs to train consistently and build some robustness.”