Hatters boss rues disruption to his squad after several miss Brighton loss

Luton boss Nathan Jones was left to rue the disruption caused to his squad during pre-season after having several players missing from this afternoon’s 3-1 defeat to Brighton & Hove Albion.

The Hatters were without skipper Sonny Bradley, plus fellow centre halves Tom Lockyer and Reece Burke meaning that Town began with a partnership of Kal Naismith and Glen Rea, Gabe Osho soon taking over from Rea who moved into midfield.

Late on, Peter Kioso also took a turn alongside Osho, while Henri Lansbury and James Shea also weren’t involved on the day either.

Speaking about the issues he has had, Jones said: “It’s a bit of everything but the majority of it is what we don’t talk about.

“It’s affecting everyone. It affects us. We stick to protocols and so on but it’s been so disjointed.

“We’ve got three centre halves out. We had to play Gabby in there, Peter Kioso, Glen Rea, because we’ve been decimated in that area.

“There’s been so much disruption this pre-season.

"We’ve been a little makeshift in what we’ve had to do, especially defensive centre half partnerships.

“At the minute it’s been so disjointed in terms of the last two and a half weeks that we’ve just got to make sure that we get to Monday, reevaluate, see who we’ve got and move from there.

“Others, pretty much the ones I brought on, have hardly trained, so it’s been really disjointed.

"But let’s be positive, it’s been a good run-out, it’s a real good test.”

When asked if the problems were due to the current ‘pingdemic’ which sees people having to isolate for 10 days if they come into contact with anyone suffering from Covid, Jones added: “Not quite, it’s just the way it is at the minute.

"We’ve just had disruption so much and that’s the thing.

“A lot of players have suffered, one way or another and that means a knock-on effect with everyone.

“Dan Potts has to play more minutes than we would’ve liked him to, then he picked up an injury because of that, so it’s a knock-on effect constantly with certain things.

"We have to be clever and do the right things. That’s the way of the world.

On whether it will affect Jones’ choices for his starting 11 that take to the field against Peterborough in the Championship opener next weekend, the boss added “Not necessarily, it just means that one or two that you’d like to have far more work, don’t get it.

“If it happened now, then we’d be in trouble, but we’ve had a few things that have disrupted us, which means that certain people haven’t been able to train.

“If they haven’t been able to train, are they ready?

"I’m not saying it’s decimated us, because we’ve still got real good numbers, but in certain areas, certain people have had it and that’s what’s hurt us a bit.”