Hatters boss happy to see record signing Morris overtake his best Championship tally

Luton boss Nathan Jones was thrilled to see club record signing Carlton Morris already beat his previous best tally in the Championship when scoring his eighth goal of the season at the weekend.

The 26-year-old moved to Kenilworth Road in the summer from Barnsley, with Town breaking their biggest transfer fee ever shelled out to bring in the former Norwich, Shrewsbury and Rotherham forward to the club.

During his career so far, Morris has netted double figures twice, 10 coming when on loan at Shrewsbury in League One during the 2017-18 campaign.

He then managed 11 in 2020-21, four for third tier side MK Dons and then seven when moving up a division to join Barnsley in the latter stages of the season.

Last term he bagged nine in total for the Tykes, but two of those came in the 5-4 FA Cup win over Barrow, meaning that finding the net on Saturday took him to his highest output at this level so far.

Jones said: “He’s had some chances, he looks a threat, he’s been excellent for us.

“That’s eight now, so he’s already surpassed his best Championship season and we’re 17 games in, so wonderful from him.

“I’m really pleased, really happy for him, he’s a great kid, humble, works hard and demands from people and I like that.”

Morris’s eighth goal came when he showed his movement and clinical finishing inside the box, as he got across man to meet Alfie Doughty’s cross and Black Cats keeper Anthony Patterson from close range.

It was no surprise to his manager, who continued: “We work on it, he works on it, he’s really diligent.

"He takes stuff on board and I’m really pleased with Carlton, as he’s a great kid.

"I love working with him every single day and he showed that he’s a real threat.”

With Elijah Adebayo also starting to look like he is getting back to the sort of form that saw him finish with 16 goals in the Championship last season, while Harry Cornick is making his way back to full fitness from injury, midfielder Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu knows his side possess plenty of attacking theats.

He added: “We’ve got three, four, five strikers, who are all chipping in.

"Whoever scores, whether it’s Carlton, Eli, Cornick, Cameron Jerome, Cauley Woodrow, unfortunately he’s injured right now, but we’ve got some top strikers in this club and I think in the league.

"So whoever scores, we’ve got to get round them as they’re going to fire us hopefully towards the play-offs and at the end of the season we’ll see where we finish.”