Hatters boss reveals Town defender is out for a couple of months with hamstring injury

Luton defender Mads Andersen isn’t expected to feature for the Hatters again before Christmas after boss Rob Edwards revealed the severity of his hamstring injury suffered against Tottenham Hotspur ahead of the international break.

With an hour gone of the 1-0 defeat at Kenilworth Road, the Danish centre half went down requiring treatment and, unable to play any further part, was replaced by ex-Manchester United youngster Teden Mengi.

Speaking to the press this afternoon, when asked for an update on just how bad the situation was for Andersen, Edwards said: “He’s still injured unfortunately.

"It was quite a nasty hamstring injury, he’s going to be a couple of months, so that’s a real shame.”

The news is doubly frustrating as Andersen had just been getting up to speed with the level following his move from League One Barnsley in the summer for what was at the time a club record fee for the Hatters.

The 25-year-old had made six top flight appearances, with four starts, and was really beginning to look at home in his new surroundings, as like most of Luton squad, he had come into the season having never played in the top flight before.

Edwards continued: “It’s a big shame, he’s a great professional as well, an amazing attitude.

"He comes in smiling every day, you can see he’s frustrated now, but he still smiles and he’ll come back stronger and better from this.

"We want to try and keep him involved as much as possible.

"He’s out there watching the tactical parts of the sessions, we encourage him to come up and talk to us about the gameplan stuff, so he’s still thinking about the game and keeping switched on from that point of view.

"It’s tough, I know it’s part of football, it’s just a really difficult part.

"It’s something we weren’t really expecting as he’s such a good pro, a really good athlete, strong boy, but sometimes you can’t predict them.

"We’ll support him and he’ll come back better.”

Andersen’s injury is the latest in what is now a lengthy list of those suffered by Town’s defenders, with Gabe Osho and Dan Potts yet to play this term, while Amari’i Bell, Tom Lockyer and Reece Burke have all missed matches as well.

Edwards is sure the squad is strong enough to cope with his absence though, saying: “We’ve still got enough, we’re confident with what we have.

"I don’t want any injuries, I’d like to have a full squad to pick from and then have some difficult decisions, but at the moment it’s almost like it picks itself.”

With it being yet another hamstring injury too, the same issue that both ell and Arsenal loanee Albert Sambi Lokonga have picked up in recent weeks, on whether that is due to the physical pressures being placed on his squad now that they are going full throttle in a Premier League fixture, Edwards added: “We’ve reviewed it, everything’s gone up, our intensity in training, the intensity in games.

"I’m not going to talk about other teams players, but there’s a lot of high profile clubs, high profile players as well, it’s not something you can just stop unfortunately.

"We do a lot of really good work here, the strength and conditioning guys are amazing, the lads are strong.

"They buy into the gym work with loading that we do and the planning that we do to make sure we get the players in the sweet spot, not over-cooked and not under-cooked.

"We do a lot of work on that planning, but it’s inevitable you’re going to get one of two injuries and it is frustrating.

"We have reviewed it, we’ll continue to do that, continue to try and work better and learn and keep improving, but it’s just the biggest factor is the intensity now that we're at, when you’re constantly pushing and pushing and striving to get better.

"We are a team that’s going to have to try and outwork the opposition as well to get anything from any game, so we’re going to get one or two injuries unfortunately.”